Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

WHITGIFT CHARITIES BILL [Lords]

Read the Third time and passed, with Amendments.

GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL

Read the Third time and passed.

LEVER PARK BILL [Lords]

Considered; to be read the Third time.

BEDFORD CORPORATION BILL [LORDS] (By Order)

Read a Second time and committed.

Oral Answers to Questions — WALES

Road Signs (Welsh Place Names)

Mr. Gwynfor Evans: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will send a circular to Welsh road authorities urging the use of the proper form of Welsh place names on all road signs.

The Paymaster-General (Mrs. Judith Hart): I have been asked to reply.
There is nothing that my right hon. Friend can add to the Answer he gave the hon. Member on 6th November last year.—[Vol. 772, c. 129.]

Mr. Evans: Is the right hon. Lady aware that some of the most eminent and highly respected non-political leaders in Wales are increasingly supporting the very reasonable demand that our place names should be used, that our national language should be used on road signs, and that our language should be given

equality of status with English in a country where it has been spoken for almost 2,000 years? Why are the Government dragging their feet in these matters?

Mrs. Hart: With respect to the hon. Gentleman, I do not think that he fully understands the nature of the responsibilities exercised respectively by local authorities and by the Government in this matter. If the local population of Wales, in any area, wish their towns to be renamed, or the road signs to be redesigned, it is for them to influence their local community, and the Government will not stand in their way.

Explosions

Mr. Gwynfor Evans: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a further statement on the explosions in Wales.

Mrs. Hart: I have been asked to reply.
Everyone will feel the deepest concern about the recent wholly deplorable and tragic incidents. I understand that three men have been charged as a result of the incident at Holyhead on 25th June and that the police are actively pursuing their investigations into the explosions in Cardiff on 30th June and in Abergele early this morning. I cannot properly say more at this stage.

Mr. Evans: May I express my sense of shock at the horrifying tragedy last night, and may I ask the right hon. Lady whether she is aware that no solid piece of evidence has yet been produced to show that these explosions, which we all condemn, are the work of anybody connected with the Welsh Nationalist movement? If it should come to light that they are the work of, say, anarchists, or people who are not Welsh, will members of the Government apologise to the Welsh people for the way they have exploited them in order to prevent the advance of the Welsh nation towards national freedom?

Mrs. Hart: I think that the whole House will rather regret the tone of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question. I accept what the hon. Gentleman says on his own behalf, but one is bound to observe what the party's organiser in South Wales was quoted as saying as recently as last weekend. I think that the


whole House will wish to be concerned to express every possible sympathy with the people of Wales for the tragic events which have occurred during the last 24 hours, and we should be concerned to ensure that there is no element whatsoever of the Welsh nation which is prepared to express any degree of support for the events which have taken place.

Mr. Roy Hughes: Does my right hon. Friend appreciate that the Welsh people, in overwhelming numbers, deplore these senseless attacks of violence which are doing much harm to the future prosperity of Wales?

Mrs. Hart: I am sure that that expresses the general feeling of the House.

Mr. Ian Lloyd: May I ask the right hon. Lady whether she considers that what the House should be concerning itself with this afternoon—tragic though this morning's incident was—is the explosion of admiration and affection which the whole British people have for the young Prince whom Her Majesty is to present to the people of these islands and the Commonwealth?

Mrs. Hart: I think that we all wish to associate ourselves this afternoon with the admiration which has been expressed for the courage and dignity of the young man who is at the centre of all these events.

Derelict Land (Acquisition)

Mr. Hooley: asked the Secretary of State for Wales how many acres of derelict land in Wales were acquired by the Land Commission in 1968.

Mrs. Hart: I have been asked to reply.
None, Sir.

Mr. Hooley: While recognising that my right hon. Friend is not an expert on Wales, or yet on dereliction and probably not even on the Land Commission, may I ask whether she would not agree that the Land Commission could play a useful rôle in the acquisition and management of land where there are serious dereliction problems?

Mrs. Hart: Yes. As my hon. Friend will know, I have tried to discover the background to his Question and to his anxiety. I think that he knows, from the correspondence which he has already had

with my colleagues, that the Commission has made clear its willingness to help local authorities by acquiring derelict sites and passing them on to the authorities concerned. I should stress, in the light of his correspondence, that there is nothing to prevent amenity projects being grant-earning, so long as their justification includes making the area more attractive for industry.

Damaged Houses, Newport

Mr. Roy Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Wales when a settlement will be reached on all outstanding matters relating to the properties known as 41–55 Brynglas Road, Newport, Monmouthshire, which were damaged as a result of tunnelling roadworks.

Mrs. Hart: I have been asked to reply.
Nos. 41–49 Brynglas Road were bought by the contractors and I understand that they are disposing of them. Nos. 51–55 are at present vested in my right hon. Friend's Department, but are being sold. My right hon. Friend is proceeding as quickly as possible with the legal formalities, but is unable at present to forecast precise dates when the transactions will be completed.

Mr. Hughes: Will my right hon. Friend impress upon the Department the urgent need to unravel the legal complications which are preventing a settlement of this matter? Will she remember that these houses are an eyesore, that they are devaluing property, frequented by vagrants and infested by rats, and that there is an urgent need to clear the site?

Mrs. Hart: I am sure that my right hon. Friend will take careful note of those points.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

Foreign Exchange (Earnings)

Mr. Blaker: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give the value of Great Britain's total earnings of foreign exchange in 1968 and the proportion represented by invisible earnings.

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Diamond): Excluding credits on capital account, about £9,800 million, of which 36 per cent. were invisible earnings.

Mr. Blaker: In view of those figures, has not the time come for the Government to reconsider fundamentally their policy of discriminating against the service industries in the tax structure and in relation to investment incentives?

Mr. Diamond: One does not discriminate against any section of the economy or of the people. The hon. Gentleman will know that the tax structure is one of the matters which a Committee is considering.

Invisible Exports

Mr. Blaker: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what detailed studies the permanent Committee on Invisible Exports has undertaken in following up the conclusions of the Bland Committee Report; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Diamond: The Committee's first Annual Report contains details of a number of studies which are completed or in hand, and, where appropriate discussions are in progress with the Departments concerned. I welcome the Committee's examination of ways in which our invisible export performance can be further improved.

Mr. Blaker: The right hon. Gentleman is clearly aware that that Committee is currently investigating the effect of the tax structure on invisible exporters. When does he expect this study to be concluded, and will it be published?

Mr. Diamond: I expect it to be concluded during this year. Whether it will be published or not is a matter for the Committee.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Does not S.E.T., by its very nature, discriminate against invisible exports?

Mr. Diamond: S.E.T. does not discriminate against anything.

Mr. Turton: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has considered the recommendation of the Chairman in the 1968–69 Annual Report of the Committee on Invisible Exports that the Central Statistical Office should show clearly gross payments and receipts and net balances for Government transations on the one hand, and private invisible earnings on the other, in all summary tables produced; and what action he proposes to take.

Mr. Diamond: I have nothing at present to add to the reply which my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary gave to the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. John Hall) on 11th June.—[Vol. 274. c. 265.]

Mr. Turton: Does the right hon. Gentleman recollect that I raised this matter as long ago as last February, when I was given a negative reply by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that since that date this country's invisible earnings and the outflow of private capital have been misrepresented in the official accounts?

Mr. Diamond: I do not think that I could accept the latter part of the right hon. Gentleman's supplementary question. I recognise, in answer to the earlier part, his great concern with this matter. I assure him that the Government are concerned as well and that the matter is being fully examined.

Mr. Sheldon: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the figures, just published, for the first quarter of 1969 show that Government expenditure overseas is running at one of the highest ever rates? Will he look into this and make sure that we are doing everything possible to bring it down?

Mr. Diamond: Yes, Sir, but my hon. Friend will appreciate that one reason for the increase in that quarter was the large increase in aid payments.

Mr. Wingfield Digby: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what consideration he has given to the effect of the tax structure on invisible earnings; and what conclusions he has reached.

Mr. Diamond: This is a matter on which my right hon. Friend is always willing to consider specific suggestions, and, where possible, he has taken steps to help.

Mr. Digby: As S.E.T. was justified on the ground that it would help exports, is this not a rather negative tax from the point of view of invisibles and is it not high time that a positive tax was arrived at?

Mr. Diamond: It may be established that S.E.T. has helped invisible exports. It is certainly the case that invisibles are


doing very well indeed, for which we are most grateful.

Mr. Wingfield Digby: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what action he intends to take on the latest Report of the Invisible Exports Committee.

Mr. Maurice Macmillan: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will make a statement on the recent Annual Report of the Invisible Exports Committee.

Mr. Diamond: I would refer the hon. Gentlemen to the written replies given to Questions by the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. John Hall) by my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary and my hon. Friend the Minister of State at the Board of Trade on 11th and 12th June respectively.—[Vol. 784, c. 265; Vol. 784, c. 295.]

Mr. Digby: Will the right hon. Gentleman give serious consideration to this report and the strong views expressed in it, particularly the fact, which is brought out in the document, that Government expenditure abroad has risen from £100 million a year to £500 million a year since the early fifties, figures which speak for themselves?

Mr. Diamond: We are, of course, giving the report the most careful and sympathetic consideration. We welcome a good deal of what is said in it.

Mr. Macmillan: Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that in the past we have seldom, if ever, achieved a surplus on our visible account while the surplus on invisibles has been proportionately larger than it is now? Will he consider introducing a policy of reinforcing success, rather than concentrating so much on the visible side?

Mr. Diamond: Until I heard the last few words of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, I thought I would be in complete agreement with everything he was saying. I do not believe that one should concentrate on anything to the exclusion of everything else. I do not see why one should not try to help visible and invisible exports.

Sir F. Bennett: The right hon. Gentleman has asked for helpful suggestions, and I will make one. Will he have another look at the operation nowadays of

the 25 per cent. levy on the dollar premium, which many people with expert knowledge consider to be operating as a law of diminishing returns from the point of view of holding back new private portfolio investments overseas which could otherwise make a valuable contribution to our balance of payments?

Mr. Diamond: Without undertaking to do anything or even giving the impression that I may do something, I assure the hon. Gentleman that if he puts, as he has, a serious suggestion to me and asks me to consider it, I will, of course, be glad to do so.

Agriculture and Horticulture (Grants)

Sir G. Nabarro: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether under his Regulations money grants made under the Agriculture and Horticulture Act, 1964, Part 11(2) and Statutory Instrument, 1964, No. 963, The Small Horticultural Producers' Business Scheme, are assessed by the Inland Revenue free of income tax, surtax, corporation tax and capital gains duty and are not aggregable with trading profits for taxation purposes.

The Minister of State, Treasury (Mr. Dick Taverne): These grants reimburse a grower for the expenditure on the relevant programme, so that the expenditure taken into account in computing his tax liability is only the net amount, if any.

Purchase Tax

Sir G. Nabarro: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that, whereas toothbrushes are free from purchase tax, toothpaste is subject to purchase tax at 36⅔ per cent., whereas some face cloths are free of purchase tax, other facecloths are subject to purchase tax at 13¾ per cent., and that whereas some soap is free of purchase tax, perfumed soap is subject to purchase tax at 13¾ per cent.; whether he will render all such ablutionary materials free of purchase tax; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. Taverne: The answer to the first, second and third parts of the Question is "No".

Sir G. Nabarro: Will the Chancellor take steps to clean up the extraordinarily unsatisfactory position of purchase tax


on face cloths, sponges, toothpaste, toothbrushes and soap, varying between 13¾ per cent. and 55 per cent., although all are devoted to human ablution? Would it not be in the interests of cleanliness and hygiene to remove the lot from purchase tax?

Mr. Taverne: The hon. Member's questions would be more telling if they were not based on total misconceptions. For example, face cloths are not tax-free at the moment. He is also totally wrong about soap, whether soft or otherwise. If we exempted all "ablutionary articles", as he called them, the position would be just as anomalous as anything now, and the hon. Gentleman would be the first to denounce it.

Sir G. Nabarro: On a point of order. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I beg to give notice that I will raise it as soon as possible on the Adjournment.

International Monetary Fund

Mr. Marten: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will now make a statement on the results of the recent negotiations with the International Monetary Fund.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Roy Jenkins): I have nothing to add to what I told the House on 23rd and 25th June.—[Vol. 785, c. 1001–1010; Vol. 785, c. 1521–1534.]

Mr. Marten: While recognising the Chancellor's point in his previous remarks, that he does not intend to publish the quarterly figures of domestic credit expansion, may I ask whether he does not think that the experts will arrive at an approximate quarterly figure? Therefore, would it not be better to reconsider and publish them?

Mr. Jenkins: No, Sir. Experts can often reach very divergent figures. I told the House, during that debate—and I think that they were accepted—the reasons why I did not propose to publish the quarterly accounts.

Mr. Ian Lloyd: On the narrow question of our relationship with the I.M.F., is our national position in any way less circumscribed than it was when Montague Norman had to advise the

British Cabinet in the early 1930s of the terms laid down by J. P. Morgan?

Mr. Jenkins: I do not think that Montague Norman had relations with the I.M.F.

Mr. Heffer: Are the terms of the Letter of Intent likely to lead to an increase in unemployment, particularly towards the end of the year? Is my right hon. Friend aware that, in areas like Merseyside, unemployment is far too huge, and that, on the basis of the Letter of Intent, it seems that it could go a lot higher?

Mr. Jenkins: No, Sir. I see no reason to change my views about the likely course of the domestic economy, and, therefore, about the likely course of employment as a result of the Letter of Intent, from those which I had after the Budget.

Mr. Ridley: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he expects the next visit of the International Monetary Fund team to the United Kingdom.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: Probably in August.

Mr. Ridley: As we are now a fourth tranche borrower and are at the limit of our credit, would the right hon. Gentleman supplicate the I.M.F. to allow him to publish a White Paper about the results of these visits so that everyone may know what conditions have been attached to our financial survival in the' future?

Mr. Jenkins: If I thought that it would be right to publish such a White Paper, I would do so. It has not been thought appropriate in the past to do so; for example, after the quarterly visits which took place last year. I have published more about our relations with the I.M.F. than was previously published.

Mr. Heffer: While I accept the point which my right hon. Friend makes, which we appreciate, may I ask whether he will make it clear to the representatives of the I.M.F. that we are not a banana republic, that we have had just about enough of squeeze and freeze and that we will not tolerate any further high levels of unemployment?

Mr. Jenkins: No question of bananas arises and, as far as I can gather, we


are not at present a republic. The wider issues raised by my hon. Friend were debated extensively last week. I would not wish to go further into, or take away from, what I said then, which is that I believe it is possible—indeed, this is what we intend to do—to get our balance of payments right on the basis of a healthy economy at home.

Mr. Hordern: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will write a supplementary letter to the International Monetary Fund, setting out the economic objectives and policies included in his Budget but not included in his letter to the International Monetary Fund of 22nd May, 1969.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: No, Sir.

Mr. Hordern: Surely the Chancellor must change his mind on this? Does he not recall saying in his Budget speech that the Government would publish without delay some of the more important provisions of the White Paper "In Place of Strife", and that this was so because of the occurrence of unnecessary and damaging disputes? Surely it is essential to publish a supplementary letter to the International Monetary Fund without delay.

Mr. Jenkins: No. The hon. Gentleman is trying to drag this in rather unconvincingly. This did not at any time play a part in the discussions with the I.M.F.

Mr. Heffer: Will my right hon. Friend clarify the point he made earlier about our having a healthy economic situation without this leading to an increase in unemployment? Will he tell the House clearly that there will not be any further increase in unemployment in the coming months?

Mr. Jenkins: No, Sir. Clearly with this index as with others nobody is going to give an exact prediction of what will happen. I am sure that my hon. Friend, if he thinks about it, will agree with that. I see no reason as a result of the Letter to the I.M.F. to change the view about the general progress of the economy during this year which I expressed at the time of the Budget debate.

Mr. Onslow: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many Letters of

Intent have been sent to the International Monetary Fund on behalf of Her Majesty's Government since the Fund was established; and on what date each of them was signed.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: Seven. The dates are: 28th July, 1961; 19th July, 1962; 9th July, 1963; 8th July, 1964; 27th April, 1965; 23rd November, 1967; 22nd May, 1969.

Mr. Onslow: Is there any reason why they should not all be published?

Mr. Jenkins: That question should more appropriately be addressed to right hon. Gentlemen on the hon. Gentleman's own side.

Mr. Maudling: Is the Chancellor aware that I have said myself that I should be delighted for there to be publication?

Mr. Jenkins: It is a little late for the right hon. Gentleman to say that.

Mr. Higgins: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether United Kingdom drawing of future quarterly instalments of the standby credit covered by the latest letter of intent to the International Monetary Fund depends on the Fund's holdings of sterling being below 200 per cent. of the United Kingdom quota; and what estimates he has made of the future level of the Fund's sterling holdings.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: The arrangements for drawing future instalments of the standby are designed to ensure that Fund holdings of sterling will remain below 200 per cent. of the United Kingdom's quota. The future level of the Fund's holdings of sterling will depend on our drawings under the new standby and on whether other member countries make drawings in sterling.

Mr. Higgins: If the level of sterling in the Fund is not sufficient to enable the full amount to be drawn at any quarterly period, will we be able to draw only that amount which would bring the balance up to 200 per cent.?

Mr. Jenkins: I do not think that this will arise. As I see the position, we shall be able to do the scheduled debt repayments and make the drawings without there being a question of our going above the 200 per cent.

Luncheon Vouchers

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when 3s. was fixed as the limit beyond which luncheon vouchers issued by an employer to his employees would be treated as taxable in the hands of the employee.

Mr. Taverne: In 1948.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: In view of the lapse of 21 years, if 3s. was then the right figure, fixed by the then Labour Government, should it not be much higher now?

Mr. Taverne: No, Sir. This can be viewed in a number of ways. In the first place, one has to consider those who have to pay in full for their meals; in the second, it puts those who receive luncheon vouchers in no more advantageous a position than those who enjoy the benefits of a subsidised canteen.

Mr. Lipton: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that this method of subsidising wages is unnecessary and out of date and that it should be replaced by a more satisfactory wage structure, which would make all these niggling forms of subsidy unnecessary?

Mr. Taverne: This is in some ways anomalous, but it has existed for a long time and its withdrawal would be resented. But I accept that that is a good reason for not extending the system.

Balance of Payments

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest forecast of the balance of payments outturn for the current calendar year; and at what date he now expects to reach a large payments surplus on an annual basis.

Mr. Diamond: I have nothing to add to what my right hon. Friend said in the House on 23rd and 25th June.—[Vol. 785, c. 1001–10; Vol. 785, c. 1521–34.]

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Has the right hon. Gentleman noticed the polite scepticism expressed by the O.E.C.D. about the Chancellor's latest payments target? Can he tell us, as the Chancellor failed to tell us last week, what will happen if the target is not reached, as seems evident? Will the trigger clause be applied, or is this another instance of

the Government's habit of proclaiming the inevitability of the unattainable?

Mr. Diamond: The hon. Gentleman has made a number of points but the essential one was about the so-called "trigger clause". This is non-existent.

Mr. Higgins: But is it not true that what the Chancellor said does not answer my hon. Friend's question, particularly the first part, about the balance of surplus in this calendar year? What is the answer to that?

Mr. Diamond: I have given the answer to that. I cannot add to the information which my right hon. Friend has given: if I could have done, I would have done.

Overseas Sales Organisations

Mr. David Howell: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proposal he has received for special tax privileges for exporters wishing to invest in and build up overseas sales organisations.

Mr. Taverne: None, Sir.

Mr. Howell: Would the hon. and learned Gentleman nevertheless accept that it is in building up strong wholesale and distributing organisations in foreign markets that our rivals have had their most striking successes? When he and his colleagues next turn their minds to export incentives, as they presumably will before long, can they provide particular encouragement in this respect?

Mr. Taverne: This is, of course, a very important matter. However, one must have regard to a number of factors. One is the position under our international obligations, such as G.A.T.T. and E.F.T.A. Another is the fact that if there are subsidiaries abroad, they will not pay United Kingdom tax, while if there are branches abroad they receive considerable relief under double taxation agreements.

Value-added Tax

Mr. John Hall: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if, on the United Kingdom's becoming a member of the European Economic Community, he intends to introduce the value-added tax system.

Mr. Kenneth Baker: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what


arrangements he is making to implement a value-added tax in the United Kingdom in view of the renewed negotiations to enter the Common Market.

Mr. Diamond: The Government's position remains as indicated in the full statement made to the House by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in May, 1967, and in paragraph 44 of the statement made by my right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs at the meeting of the Council of the Western European Union in July, 1967, the text of which was presented to Parliament as Cmnd. 3345.

Mr. Hall: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for that informative Answer, may I ask him to be aware that the members of the E.E.C. have agreed to introduce a value-added tax not later than 1970? If Her Majesty's Government are really serious in their attempts to join the Community, will not the achievement of that desire be made more difficult if we, too, are not prepared to go over to a value-added tax system? Will the right hon. Gentleman therefore take steps to prepare Britain for the introduction of such a system?

Mr. Diamond: My Answer particularly referred to what the then Foreign Secretary said and covered exactly the supplementary question which the hon. Gentleman has asked.

Mr. Baker: Would the right hon. Gentleman ask his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, before he makes another weekend speech of rhetorical questions, to note what the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer has said on the subject of the value-added tax system, in particular about it not applying to foodstuffs? Will he also bear in mind that many organisations, including the C.B.I. and N.E.D.C., consider that a value-added tax would be not only fair and sensible but likely to be necessary?

Mr. Diamond: We will see what the N.E.D.C. has to say on this subject when its report is published shortly.

Mr. Alfred Morris: While congratulating the Chancellor on his weekend speech, may I ask the Chief Secretary to say how much choice we would have about introducing a value-added tax if we were to join the Community?

Mr. Diamond: I have referred to the very full statements which were made with the authority of the Prime Minister and the then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. As I said, they covered all these points completely. I hope that my hon. Friend will refer to them.

Finance Act, 1956 (Section 23)

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he has yet considered the representations made to him by the General Council of the Bar requesting amendment of Section 23 of the Finance Act, 1956, relating to the nature and amount of relief for qualifying premiums in order to bring the relevant statutory provisions into line with the increase in the cost of living since 1956; and what reply he has sent.

Mr. Taverne: I have written to my hon. and learned Friend explaining that I cannot add to what my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary said when this matter was discussed in Committee on the Finance Bill.

Mr. Hughes: Does my hon. Friend realise that it is a pity that he cannot add to that Answer, since Section 23 as it stands is inflicting great hardship and injustice on an important element of the administration of justice in this country? Will he consult the Attorney-General with a view to rectifying this position?

Mr. Taverne: There are two answers to my hon. and learned Friend's supplementary question. The first is that a general review of the taxation treatment of superannuation arrangements is going on; and the matter which he has raised should obviously be dealt with in that context. The second is that, while there is some hardship, it is, on the whole, affecting those earning more than £7,500 a year.

Mr. Waddington: Has the Minister really got his heart in the right place in dealing with this matter? Does he genuinely believe that it is a good thing to encourage private provision for old age, or does he believe it to be something which runs counter to his Socialist philosophy? If he believes in it, will he back up his beliefs by some action?

Mr. Taverne: If the hon. Gentleman had read the reply of the Financial Secretary in Committee when the Finance


Bill was under discussion he would have seen that this issue received sympathetic treatment from my right hon. Friend. This is something which one would like to see helped but one must have regard to priorities, and the first priorities are not necessarily concerned with those who have very high income levels.

Dividends

Mr. Ridley: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will now make a statement on Her Majesty's Government's intentions regarding the level of increase of dividends after 1st January, 1970.

Mr. Diamond: I have nothing to add to the statement I made on 21st April.—[Vol. 782, c. 43–5.]

Mr. Ridley: Since that statement said precisely nothing, will the Chief Secretary now tell the House whether it is right that anyone may increase his dividends after the end of this year by any amount he thinks fit, because the powers under which the Chancellor controls them will have expired?

Mr. Diamond: I dealt with that point in my statement. I made clear that there were to be discussions with the C.B.I. and that I would give the House the information as soon as possible and well within the time for companies to make their necessary arrangements.

Mr. Frederic Harris: If the Government are unfortunately to go on with this limiting policy, can they be more broadminded in their suggestions and, instead of going to four decimal points, round the figures off?

Mr. Diamond: I hope that the hon. Member will give me details of any case he has in mind, because when this difficulty has arisen we have met it.

Mr. Ridley: In view of the extremely unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter on the Adjournment.

Federal German Republic (Credits)

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer in what currency or currencies credits received from the Federal German Republic under recycling arrangements will fall to be repaid.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: Dollars.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: I am grateful to the Chancellor for giving us that most welcome information. Even so, would he not agree that these sort of recycling arrangements provide no solution to the continuing problem of the German surplus and that to some extent they make it easier for the Germans to manage a perpetuating surplus on this scale?

Mr. Jenkins: I think I have answered the main point the hon. Member has in mind, and he was gracious enough to acknowledge that. As to the wider point, I certainly would not regard recycling arrangements as the answer to all problems of international currency alignment, but I think they are desirable in order to neutralise speculative flows which occur from time to time.

Bank for International Settlements

Mr. Biffen: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what discussions he proposes to have with the Bank for International Settlements in view of the present short-term overseas indebtedness of the United Kingdom Government.

Mr. Taverne: None, Sir.

Mr. Biffen: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the annual report of the Bank for International Settlements in respect of this country talked about "a tinge of anarchy" in our labour relations? Is he aware that that description is both a travesty and an impertinence? Will he take the earliest opportunity to make representations of the sort I have indicated to either the President or General Manager of the Bank for International Settlements?

Mr. Taverne: That report was an expression of view—it is in no sense an imposition of burdens—and as such I do not think it calls for any international action.

Taxation

Mr. Sheldon: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what consideration he has given to the further representations made to him that research studies should be set up to consider the disincentive effects of taxation.

Mr. Diamond: I have nothing to add to my long letter to my hon. Friend of


29th April and the Chancellor's comments in the Finance Bill debate on 13th May.—[Vol. 783, c. 1272–3.]

Mr. Sheldon: Is my right hon. Friend aware that since then there has been brought to my notice a very large amount of exploratory work being taken on at certain universities? Does he not consider that it is time the Government paralleled that work in the universities with some research efforts of their own?

Mr. Diamond: As I explained in my letter and my right hon. Friend explained in his speech, we did not think we could usefully take on further work at the present time.

Mr. Blaker: Does the Chief Secretary recall that studies into the disincentive effect of taxes on service industries were made by the Bland Committee and published in 1967? The Government have done nothing about them? Why not?

Mr. Diamond: Those were recommendations made to the subsequent committee examining these very things.

Mr. Kenneth Baker: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what consideration he has given to the plan submitted to him by the accountants' organisations for streamlining the tax system; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Taverne: My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer discussed this recently with representatives of the accountancy bodies and has agreed that the Inland Revenue should consider with them the procedure for consultation on this subject.

Mr. Baker: Surely the Chancellor would not say that this is good enough? Would not the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that we have the most complicated and obscure mass of tax laws on personal taxation of any country in the world? Would he not agree that the first thing which is needed is a simplification of the personal taxation system? Will he bear in mind that in America, where there are three times the number of taxpayers, only the same number of tax gatherers are employed as we have in the Inland Revenue?

Mr. Taverne: Of course simplification would be in many ways desirable, but it is not always realised that simplification

might run counter to equity, and many Chancellors, including those who have come from the benches opposite, have found in the past that their desires for simplification have not proved quite as easy in practice as they had hoped. Discussions with accountancy bodies on an informal basis would be the best way of proceeding and I hope that when the discussions take place—they are to start this week—they will produce good results.

Mrs. Ewing: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the amount of overtime worked by the Inland Revenue and that the bill for overtime is an unproductive addition to the bill the taxpayer has to meet?

Mr. Taverne: The alternative to overtime would be to take on extra civil servants, which is something that hon. Members opposite are loth to accept. Of course one is very well aware of the arguments produced by hon. Members opposite who want less taxation but more public expenditure.

New Savings Schemes

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what progress has been made in implementing the new savings schemes outlined in the Budget.

Mr. Taverne: Good progress is being maintained by the Department for National Savings in its administrative planning for S.A.Y.E., by the Trustee Savings Banks for their parallel scheme and by the Building Societies Association who have agreed in principle to operate a scheme corresponding in all major purposes to S.A.Y.E. The target date for all these schemes is October next.

Mr. Taylor: Is not the hon. and learned Gentleman genuinely alarmed at the fact that for the first 12 weeks of the current financial year withdrawals exceeded new savings by at least £1 million a day? Will he press ahead with the new scheme to attract to the National Savings movement?

Mr. Taverne: Of course we seek to press ahead but this scheme will be ready by 1st October and, contrasted with the Premium Bonds scheme which took 14 months to come into operation, that seems a reasonable time.

Mr. Barnett: Does my hon. and learned Friend consider that it might be necessary to increase the rate of interest in view of the level of interest rates and the way they have been going since the first announcement?

Mr. Taverne: No, Sir.

M. Giscard d'Estaing (Meeting)

Mr. Henig: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will arrange an early meeting with M. Giscard d'Estaing.

Mr. Taverne: My right hon. Friend is looking forward to meeting M. Giscard d'Estaing when a suitable occasion arises. It is as yet too early to say when this might be.

Mr. Henig: I thank my hon. and learned Friend for that constructive and helpful reply. When this meeting takes place, will the Chancellor place high on the agenda the question of the current international monetary system and see if it is possible for Britain and France to devise a common approach to these problems? Will he also examine with his French opposite number the possibility of moving towards some form of common European currency?

Mr. Taverne: Of course all these considerations will be very much in my right hon. Friend's mind when in due course they meet.

Mr. Marten: Will the Chancellor at this meeting make clear to the French Minister that the calculations that we would have to pay across the exchanges to the common agricultural pool under the new scheme for agriculture they are now working out are estimated fairly objectively to be of the order of £700 million and that is something which this country cannot afford? Will he discuss this with the French Minister?

Mr. Taverne: I cannot anticipate the exact form the discussions will take. This matter is very much in the mind of the Government and one has to wait to see how the common agricultural policy works out.

Local Authority Borrowing (Bank Credit)

Mr. Alison: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will take steps to include local authority borrowing

within the categories of those towards whom banks are to exercise credit restraint.

Mr. Diamond: As my right hon. Friend said in his Budget speech, he attaches the greatest importance to restraint in the provision of bank credit both to the public and private sectors. The London Clearing and Scottish Banks were asked in May, 1968, to ensure that their lending to local authorities returned to more normal levels—that is broadly the levels outstanding at November, 1967. These banks are aware that they should endeavour to see that their lending to local authorities does not rise appreciably above this level.

Mr. Alison: Could the Chief Secretary tell us whether the large sums the local authorities have borrowed or may borrow from the banks are included in his residual negative public sector borrowing requirement of £300 million, that is to say, are they already taken into account for the D.C.E. calculation? Would it not be more satisfactory if the Government used some of their very large central Government negative borrowing requirements to help local authorities instead of putting them into the banks?

Mr. Diamond: To the extent that local authorities borrow from banks the answer would be "Yes". To the extent that they borrow from the non-banking sector this would not arise and would not be part of the domestic credit expansion.

Private Investment

Mr. Alison: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will now take further fiscal and monetary measures to encourage reversal of the recent downward revisions of business investment expectations.

Mr. Diamond: I refer the hon. Gentleman to my right hon. Friend's speech in the debate on the Letter of Intent on 25th June. He said then that he expected a good increase in private investment during the year ahead broadly in line with that forecast at the time of the Budget.

Mr. Alison: Was either the Chief Secretary or the Chancellor expecting the downward revision in investment intentions either at the time of the Budget or


when the Chief Secretary spoke in Committee on the Finance Bill at the beginning of its proceedings?

Mr. Diamond: At the time of his Budget my right hon. Friend the Chancellor took into account the variations he expected to arise from current policy changes.

Mr. Barnett: In view of the importance of manufacturing investment, if it appears to the Chancellor that because of liquidity problems there is a downturn against his forecast, would he consider at that stage possibly bringing forward payment of investment grants to help the companies that we need to help in this sphere?

Mr. Diamond: I know that my hon. Friend is concerned about this point. Indeed, we are all concerned that investment should be maintained and not drop through lack of financial resources. Both my right hon. Friend and I have made it clear that we do not see any such likelihood.

Mr. Higgins: Why apparently was the Chief Secretary unaware of the Board of Trade's published survey on this subject when he took part in the debates in Standing Committee on the Finance Bill?

Mr. Diamond: I was not unaware of the figures underlying both the Board of Trade figures and other figures which we have published.

Domestic Credit Expansion

Mr. Hordern: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will provide figures showing domestic credit expansion as a whole, and of the central Government borrowing requirement within it, at quarterly intervals.

Mr. Taverne: Yes, Sir. These figures will be provided, along with figures for the money supply, in the usual official publications.

Mr. Hordern: Will they be provided at regular quarterly intervals in the same way as they will be provided to the International Monetary Fund? Does the hon. and learned Gentleman recognise how essential it is that these figures should be so provided, as it was the activities of the Government Broker that were largely responsible for the large increase in the money supply last year? Will he now

say what the rôle of the Government Broker is after the Letter to the I.M.F.?

Mr. Taverne: The figures will be provided as soon as they are firm enough. A number of factors determine when they can be published. First, it takes some time for the figures to become available. Secondly, when it comes to the question of sales of Government debt there must be a suitable interval of 10 weeks or so, as has been recognised in the past, otherwise market operations might he prejudiced. The figures will be published as soon as they are firm and as soon as it is reasonable for them to be published.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRIES OF DEFENCE AND OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

Mr. Raymond Fletcher: asked the Prime Minister if he will now merge the Ministries of Defence and Overseas Development into a Ministry of External Security.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Roy Jenkins): I have been asked to reply.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has no plans to do so, although the machinery of government is kept under constant review.

Mr. Fletcher: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this Question stems from a close study of our experience during the Malaysian confrontation in which the Departments mentioned in the Question merged with conspicuous success? In a world in which economic development is as powerful a contribution to security as armed diplomacy, should not this fact be institutionalised?

Mr. Jenkins: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will take into account what my hon. Friend has said, and the parallel he draws with the Malaysian situation may have some validity. It is important to keep in mind that the primary object of our aid policy is to help developing countries and not to further our external security. Therefore, I am not sure by any means that in all the circumstances such an amalgation would be desirable.

Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: In Asia is not freedom from fear the corollary to


freedom from want? If so, is there not a contradiction in one Ministry withdrawing its efforts from east of Suez while the other tries to build up?

Mr. Jenkins: I do not think so for a moment. It may be perfectly reasonable for us to cut our military forces to what we can afford and what are reasonable in present world circumstances without contracting out of development aid.

Mr. Rippon: Will the Government consider adopting the suggestion made last week by the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) and in view, as he said, of the ambiguity of the Government's policy east of Suez publish a White Paper on this subject?

Mr. Jenkins: I think that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence will be announcing to the House the results of the conference, and no doubt that point can be raised with him and he can consider the matter then.

Miss Herbison: Will my right hon. Friend inform the Prime Minister that there would be very grave opposition from both sides of the House to the joining of the Ministries of Defence and Overseas Development, particularly as the work of the Ministry of Overseas Development is, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor said in reply to the first supplementary question, to give aid to developing countries where it is needed?

Mr. Jenkins: I have already, as I think my right hon. Friend will recognise, indicated that there seem to me to be certain strong arguments in the direction in which she is pointing. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will take fully into account the stress she has laid upon this point.

Oral Answers to Questions — NIGERIA

Mr. Barnes: asked the Prime Minister if he will seek another opportunity to meet Colonel Ojukwu in view of the latest developments in the war in Nigeria.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: I have been asked to reply.
As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister explained to the House after he returned from Nigeria on 3rd April, he

would not rule out a meeting if he thought it would be helpful. That remains the position, but since that time there has been no indication to suggest that a meeting with Colonel Ojukwu would be helpful.—[Vol. 781, c. 651–4.]

Mr. Barnes: Is not much more required from Britain at present than the shuffling off of our involvement and a continual blaming of the Biafrans, as we got from the Foreign Secretary yesterday? Daylight flights there must surely be, but are the British Government prepared to demand that Nigeria allows the International Red Cross to carry out those daylight flights on the same basis as has been so successful in recent months?

Mr. Jenkins: I understand that meetings have been taking place both yesterday and today with a view to achieving these daylight flights, which we would certainly all like to see, but the exact results of the talks are not yet clear, although the indications are that it might be possible to get daylight flights.

Mr. Hugh Fraser: If the Prime Minister cannot meet Colonel Ojukwu, would it not be a good idea if the Foreign Secretary informed himself better about the situation inside Biafra by getting in touch with the Red Cross? Yesterday he said that there was no food shortage in Biafra at all, which was a most extraordinary thing to say.

Mr. Jenkins: I am assured that my right hon. Friend is in close touch with the Red Cross.

Oral Answers to Questions — PARLIAMENTARY BOUNDARY COMMISSIONS (RECOMMENDATIONS)

Mr. Onslow: asked the Prime Minister if he will request the person who gave him the oral reports on the probable consequences of implementing the recommendations of the Parliamentary Boundary Commissions to commit his conclusions to writing so that these may be placed in the Library of the House of Commons.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: I have been asked to reply.
I have nothing to add to what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for


the Home Department said during the debate on redistribution of seats on 19th June, and to what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said in reply to a Question by the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) on 26th June.—[Vol. 785, c. 737–51: Vol. 785, c. 1703–4.]

Mr. Onslow: Apart from the fact that that does not answer my Question, will no one ever add some artistic verisimilitude to the Prime Minister's bald and unconvincing narrative?

Mr. Jenkins: I wonder what the hon. Gentleman would have done with his carefully prepared supplementary question if he had thought that I had answered his Question. The Question was put in almost precisely the same form to the Prime Minister in April, and was answered.

Mr. Whitaker: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the new constituency proposals take into account the 18 to 21-year-old voters?

Mr. Jenkins: I am not sure that this information was available to the Boundary Commission, but this subject is to be debated tomorrow, and the whole matter can be discussed then.

Mr. Maudling: As there are strong reasons for believing that the Government's actions in this matter are in open breach of the law, will the right hon. Gentlemen tell the House what advice was received from the Law Officers in this matter?

Mr. Jenkins: As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister indicated when this subject was last discussed at Question time in the House, the Law Officers are consulted in these matters, and the normal practice was followed. I have nothing to add to what the Prime Minister said on precisely this point on the last occasion.

Mr. Maudling: Surely in these matters the Law Officers should advise not merely the Government but the House as a whole, and the House is entitled to know what their view is?

Mr. Jenkins: The right hon. Gentlemen will have plenty of opportunity to raise this in the debate tomorrow.

Oral Answers to Questions — CABINET MEETINGS

Mr. William Price: asked the Prime Minister whether he will authorise an official Press statement at the conclusion of future Cabinet meetings.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: I have been asked to reply.
My right hon. Friend has no plans to do so, Sir.

Mr. Price: Is my right hon. Friend really satisfied with the quality of Cabinet leakages? Does not he agree that an official version would be preferable to the mixture of Ministerial tittle-tattle and journalistic nonsense that we have now?

Mr. Jenkins: I would be inclined to say that I am more satisfied with the quantity than the quality of Cabinet leakages. I have no proposals such as my hon. Friend suggests

Oral Answers to Questions — PRESIDENT OF FRANCE (DISCUSSIONS)

Mr. Marten: asked the Prime Minister if he will invite the new President of France to visit this country.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: asked the Prime Minister whether he will seek a meeting with the President of the French Republic.

Mr. Henig: asked the Prime Minister if he will invite M. Pompidou to visit London.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: I have been asked to reply.
I would refer to the reply which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister gave to a Question by the hon. Member for Dorset, West (Mr. Wingfield Digby) on 24th June.—[Vol. 785, c. 1215–16.]

Mr. Marten: Will the right hon. Gentleman suggest to the Prime Minister that when the meeting takes place the Prime Minister should state firmly to the French President Britain's objection to supra-nationalism should we join the Common Market? As the Common Market is now heading towards supra-nationalism, would not the answer be, as


we shall have a clash on this anyway, for Britain to go now for a free trade area between the Six and the Seven?

Mr. Jenkins: This is the second attempt the hon. Gentleman has made in the past 10 minutes to suggest to the Government what they should say at hypothetical conversations the date of which has not yet been fixed. I hope that the Government will, if and when the conversations take place, as I hope they will, state the policy of the Government rather than that of the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: In view of the French Prime Minister's forthcoming statement about the British and French nuclear deterrents, would it not be a good idea if the Prime Minister discussed with the President of the French Republic the aligning of these two forces within the Western Alliance? Would not that be very helpful in providing a better atmosphere for discussions on Europe?

Mr. Jenkins: I have no doubt that it would be a good idea in due course for the Prime Minister and the new French President to have discussions on a wide range of issues.

Mr. Henig: Will my right hon. Friend consider that this is a matter of some urgency, and that it is now high time Anglo-French relations were placed once again on a proper footing? Will he therefore recommend to his right hon. Friend that a meeting with President Pompidou takes place some time during the summer, that when it takes place there should be full and frank discussions on all aspects of Europe's future, and that there should not be questions that we would rather not discuss?

Mr. Jenkins: I would hope that when a meeting did take place it would indeed take the form of full and frank discussion. As to the timing of the meeting, President Pompidou has only just taken office, and I think that this is better left to my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Alfred Morris: Does my right hon. Friend agree that even in advance of any such meeting it must be made abundantly clear that there is no question of nuclear sharing with France?

Hon. Members: Why not?

Mr. Morris: Is not this precluded by our signature to the Non-Proliferation Treaty?

Mr. Jenkins: There is no question of making any departure from previous policy on a Question about whether or not a particular meeting should take place.

Mr. Rippon: Does that answer mean that the Government accept that there should be an Anglo-French nuclear deterrent?

Mr. Jenkins: No, Sir. The answer means precisely what it says, that I am not announcing any new policy today on an Anglo-French nuclear deterrent, which may not be a complete surprise, even to the right hon. and learned Gentleman.

Oral Answers to Questions — FIVE POWER TALKS, CANBERRA

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: asked the Prime Minister why a Minister representing the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was not present at the Five Power Conference in Canberra.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: I have been asked to reply.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence represented the United Kingdom Government at these talks. It was not considered necessary to send a Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister as well.

Mr. Griffiths: Since, in addition to its Defence Minister, every other nation present was represented either by its Prime Minister or Foreign Minister, or both, does not the right hon. Gentleman think that the British representation lacked weight and comprehensiveness? Has he seen the recent Soviet statements that British withdrawals are creating a vacuum? Does not he think that the political and diplomatic aspects required to be discussed at Canberra?

Mr. Jenkins: I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman is accurate on the facts of his premise. I think that Malaysia was represented by its Defence Minister, who is also Deputy Prime Minister, but not Prime Minister or Foreign Minister. However, this country was certainly very fully and powerfully represented by my


right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence, and where he is present he does not create a vacuum.

Oral Answers to Questions — M62 ROAD (MINISTER OF TRANSPORT'S STATEMENT)

Mr. Tilney: asked the Prime Minister whether the public statement by the Minister of Transport on 2nd May concerning the question of a public inquiry in relation to the proposed Tarbuck-Queens Drive section of the M62 represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: I have been asked to reply.
Yes, Sir.

Mr. Tilney: Much as we all want to see the completion of the South Lancashire motorway, does not the Minister of Transport's statement that the sooner we get the public inquiry out of the way the quicker we can get on with it, imply a somewhat cavalier attitude to public inquiries?

Mr. Jenkins: I think that it implied a desire to proceed urgently with the work of his Ministry. I am sure that that is an attitude that the House in general will commend. I certainly do not take it—and I am sure that it is not the case—that this in any way represented a desire on his part not to take seriously the inquiry, but merely a desire to get moving quickly.

Mr. J. T. Price: Is my right hon. Friend aware that despite criticism to the contary, work on the M62 motorway is proceeding ahead of schedule, and that many of us who are interested in that part of the country are delighted with the progress being made?

Mr. Jenkins: That is very good to hear. My right hon. Friend was anxious to maintain the rate of progress as far as he could, and that is very laudable.

Oral Answers to Questions — DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC AFFAIRS

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the changed situation resulting from the recent negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, he will now abolish the Department of Economic Affairs.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: I have been asked to reply.
I do not accept the assumption contained in the first half of the right hon. Gentleman's Question. The second part does not therefore arise.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Would not the acting Prime Minister consult the Chancellor of the Exchequer about this? Surely the D.E.A. was created as an inflationary counterpoise to the Treasury's deflationary policies? Now that the latter is being reinforced by the I.M.F., is not the former otiose?

Mr. Jenkins: I have consulted the Chancellor of the Exchequer about this matter, and I have no desire in any way to vary the statement which I made earlier. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that relations between the D.E.A. and the Treasury are extremely harmonious at present.

Mr. MacDermot: Whilst I, too, do not accept the assumption in the original Question, would my right hon. Friend ask the Prime Minister to consider the matter carefully from another point of view, namely, the reforms in the machinery of central Government likely to be needed following the reforms projected in our system of local government? For this reason, would he ask my right hon. Friend to consider whether it would not be right to set up an inquiry, and start one now, on the whole machinery of government, taking account of the experience gained in the past few years, including that of the D.E.A.?

Mr. Jenkins: As I have indicated, the machinery of Government is kept under constant review. I am not sure that an inquiry would be the best method of doing this, but no doubt my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will consider carefully the suggestion of my hon. and learned Friend, who has had long experience of these Departments.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SUPPLY)

Ordered,
That this day Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Ten o'clock.—[Mr. Mellish.]

CIVIL LIST (AMENDMENT)

The following Motion stood upon the Order Paper in the name of Mr. EMRYS HUGHES.
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Civil List Act, 1952, to deny to the Prince of Wales at the age of majority the net revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall.

Mr. Speaker: The whole House will, I am sure, wish me to say how much we regret the reason why the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) is not here to move his Motion, which, therefore, falls.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

SUPPLY

[24TH ALLOTTED DAY],—considered.

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. McCann.]

NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE (FINANCING)

3.32 p.m.

Mr. Maurice Macmillan: In discussing the financing of the National Health Service and contemplating the Secretary of State for Social Services in these activities, one cannot help being reminded of "Alice Through the Looking Glass".
I am not sure whether the right hon. Gentleman should be likened to the White Queen, who said:
Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast",
or to the Red Queen, who said:
Now here you see, it takes all the running you can do to stay in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast.
Anyone willing to accept what the right hon. Gentleman has said over the years, or even over the last few weeks, must be prepared to believe six impossible things, if not before breakfast, at least after Question Time.
I think that we must all admit that, when it comes to the financing of the National Health Service, it takes all the paying we can do to stay in the same place and that, to get somewhere else and improve the Service in the way we all want, we have to pay a good deal more. The basic question we are discussing is how much and how we are to get the extra money. That is the point which will underlie our questions.
I know that the right hon. Gentleman has given some indication by charges and squeezes. Reverting to Alice once more, perhaps one can say,
Speak roughly to your little boy
And beat him when he squeezes.
He only does it to annoy
Because he knows it teases.


We are spending nearly 5¼ per cent. of the gross national product on health and the Health Service. According to the Government's own figures, in 1967–68 the figure was £1,662 million; in 1968–69, it has risen to £1,785 million; and in 1969–70 it will be a total of £1,876 million. The major proportion of this sum comes from the taxpayer. Adjusted to out-turn prices, in 1970–71 there will be £284 million from charges and contributions and £1,749 million from rates and taxes, a total of £2,033 million. That is a sizeable problem on any judgment. It is aggravated in two ways.
First, it is not soluble, as has been implied in the past, simply by the buoyancy of the economy, by our capacity to expand, although this is, of course, enormously helpful. Any foreseeable expansion of the economy, even under a Tory Government, could not, in my view, be expected to produce the full amount which the Health Service requires in addition to what we are now spending. Apart from anything else, the calls of education and pensions will be very considerable and on the social side they, too, require more spending in order to maintain existing standards. An increasing number of children will be at school and the number of old people will also increase. The Health Service itself will require more, without any improvement in standards, just to check the malaise indicated by our increasing dependence upon foreign doctors, among many other signs.
The second problem in contemplating the financing of the Health Service is that medical science and the great advances it is making has aggravated the problem. The tendency is that those whose lives are, happily, saved or prolonged are not among the producers. The greater the advance the greater the demand on inevitably limited resources of money and manpower. The original idea that a comprehensive Health Service would keep the nation sufficiently healthy to pay for itself, as it were, out of increased output has turned out to be fallacious. So we have a large problem which cannot be left entirely to economic expansion, whenever that may be achieved, and one which looks like being worse in future, in view of the rapid advance of medical and technical science.
On the other hand, the problem is to some extent limited and divided into two by the nature of the care which the Health Service seeks to give to our people. Half the expenditure of the Service roughly deals at the moment with the aged sick, the chronic sick, the mentally ill, the subnormal and long-stay care, and it seems to me that, whatever system of financing of the service we devise in future, that half will inevitably be a burden on the taxpayer and the taxpayer alone because by its nature it cannot be and is not susceptible to charges of any kind. So it is only for half the total expenditure on the Health Service that we are contemplating possible changes or developments in the method of financing.
In 1970–71, excluding the estimated £100 million or more devoted to capital resources, half the total expenditure on the Health Service will come to about £950 million. Assuming that the rates carry the same proportion as now and stay at about £240 million, the taxpayer, under the present system, will be paying £1,500 million or more. Of the total, £950 million inevitably will be the burden of the taxpayers as the system is now organised. This leaves £550 million or more, therefore, which is susceptible to changes in the method of financing the Health Service. At the moment, in 1970–71 the figures at out-turn prices means that the Exchequer will bear £1,500 million or more in the financing of the service.
If we assume that, whatever system we have the Exchequer must bear part of the total cost. This comes to £950 million, the difference between that representing the area of choice which could be open to variation. That area of choice is confined to a total of £550 million, representing in round figures, one quarter of the total expenditure on the Health Service. It is a curious coincidence that this also represents, roughly, the proportion which in many European countries is not covered by the social security tax, is not reclaimable by the patient, except on a test of need, and it is, therefore, that element which in many European systems is met by the patient.
We on this side understand the Government's dilemma, but I cannot pretend that I have very much sympathy for them. They have brought it upon themselves.


The promises about the capacity of the Labour Government to develop health and social services generally without increasing taxation were so numerous that the Government's commitment to their past must have had some bearing on their present difficulties and inhibitions in considering future policies.
During the 1964 election, replying to the suggestion that these policies might lead to increased taxation, the Prime Minister said that for the general body of taxpayers the answer was "No". He said:
Over the period of Parliament, in our whole programme for expansion, we can do all this within the increment of current reduction.
The increment is not enough to prevent an extra £3,000 million a year taxation.
The present Home Secretary said that
…increased social expenditure will be financed out of the growing expansion of British industry. We shall not cash cheques until the money is in the bank".
Unfortunately, all that we have got is borrowed money in the bank to prevent the cheques being returned marked "Return to drawer".
Even the right hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) said that Labour would not be a spendthrift Government. He said:
It will not need to increase the general level of taxation to pay for its progamme.
In fairness to the right hon. Gentleman, he has the courage and consistency of his convictions, because he has suggested that what could be raised equitably by charges is the extra slice of resources which we need to switch from private to public consumption, to give us the better service we want. He made it quite clear that he was not contemplating a massive removal of the burden on the taxpayer. He was merely suggesting that people should make indirect payments with the safeguards he suggested in detail, for their use of the service or some part of it, such as prescriptions or treatment in hospital, to give us the better service we want—by getting an extra slice of resources switched from the private sector—consumption goods—to the public sector—health.
In principle, I agree with him, but does the Secretary of State? I do not know. He appears to disagree, because in replying to his hon. Friend the Member for

Bosworth (Mr. Wyatt) on 5th May, he said:
However, if he was to imply that these charges indicate a view by me that a wide extension of charges is preferable to taxation, this is absolutely untrue, because in my view charges are matters of limited utility at the best and the public must face the fact that the major cost of the Health Service will in future always have to be borne by taxation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th May, 1969; Vol. 783, c. 48]
It rather depends on what is meant by "major". The statement that the charges are of "limited utility" is an indication of a divergence of view. It implies, too, that the Secretary of State appears to accept with resignation, if not equanimity, that there will be no improvement in the Health Service, no money available for it, because in his "Essay on Socialism"—I agree that this is some time ago and he may have changed his mind—in 1967, he commented that without
…a fairly rapid rate of economic growth
further social progress could not be achieved.
The right hon. Gentleman went so far as to suggest that higher taxes were out of the question because, as he said:
There is a limit both in time and in extent to the restrictions that are acceptable.
I agree. Whether his hon. Friend the Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt) agrees, is a different matter.
I am not even certain whether the right hon. Gentleman agrees with himself, whether he still holds this view. It seems that what he said in 1967 and what he said in reply to his hon. Friend in 1969 shows a difference of view, or a willingness to accept that if taxation cannot go up nor can improvements in the Health Service, because the money cannot be found.
I accept that it is too much for us to look for agreement in these matters on the benches opposite, but the House would be grateful for the right hon. Gentleman's views. Where does he stand? "There is a limit", as he said, to taxation. On the other hand, "the major cost of the service will always have to be borne by taxation". Charges, he said,
are matters of limited utility at the best,
Even to raise equitably the extra slice of resources?
As for "a rate of economic growth", "the growing expansion of industry" and "the increment of current production", these are, for him and his right hon. Friends, a pipedream of some distant future. Even when they come, under a Tory Government, there will still be a lot of charges upon an expanded economy. Professor Abel Smith has pointed out the position most clearly. In May, 1968, he said:
In the 1964 Election, the whole thrust of the Government's programme was on economic growth, and this made it possible to promise both an increase in the social services and an increase in private affluence. The worship of growth rescued the Labour Party from the dilemma of choice between the private and public sectors. But it also made it more painful for the Government when the planned rate of growth failed to materialise. Hence the pain of the cuts announced last January. For instance, the introduction of prescription charges was a bitter blow for Labour supporters.
Since then we have had further charges and an equally bitter blow to loyal Labour supporters. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman could let us know when we are to see the regulations that will bring the charges in, so that we can leave the matter until then. If he cannot help in this way, I must say that whereas the Prime Minister made it clear that the £3,500 savings from these charges was a Cabinet decision, requiring the burden of savings to be distributed throughout Government expenditure, the Secretary of State made it equally clear that unless charges were imposed the demands upon him for savings would affect the standard provided by the Health Service and would especially affect mental and subnormal hospitals.
I do not wish to say more about that; we shall deal with the details later. However, what is relevant to the debate is the admission by implication of the need for more money and that a reduction in expenditure can be achieved only at the cost of serious damage and that the only way of averting such a reduction is to impose charges. It is not a question of the Health Service being in any way privileged in the plans for Government saving. In accepting this burden, the Secretary of State faced the dilemma of either making damaging cuts—and, as he put it, that would have been criminal in the case of hospitals for mental and subnormal people—or imposing charges.
The relevance of that to the debate is what it implies for the future. The Secretary of State must tell the House, when there is need for more money to prevent further deterioration of the Service, where he proposes to get it from—taxes, charges, or contributions. Or does he propose to do nothing and to wait, hoping that the planned expansion will be achieved, meanwhile doing his best by switching resources from one part of the service to another? I cannot believe that this enthusiastic, genuine reformer, with such great plans, now has merely a pension scheme which puts the burden on the future and health plans which consist of patching and pruning.
Switching expenditure and getting the priorities right in the service can do a great deal to help. As Professor Townsend said in his capacity as President of the Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association, we are proportionately spending less on mental health provision than we were three years ago. The Secretary of State recognised this. In his statement about Ely Hospital he said:
These"—
mental—
hospitals must be given their fair share of manpower and money, even if this means, as it will mean, a reallocation of resources within the Health Service. I shall be considering with the boards ways and means of starting this difficult operation as soon as possible."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th March, 1969; Vol. 780, c. 1810.]
To do the right hon. Gentleman justice, he did start it. It was pointed out in a speech of his, made at a hospital management committee's meeting at Weston-super-Mare, that long-stay hospitals were already getting a greater share of available public resources. The speech went on:
'My own top priority in the hospital service at present is to divert more resources to the long-stay hospitals which, I fear, have in the past often been a deprived sector of the hospital service. In spite of my predecessor's request in 1965 that these services should be given a due and early share of the resources available…10 regions devoted a smaller proportion of their allocation than in 1964–65 to subnormality, 11 devoted less to mental illness and eight less to the chronic sick'.
As the Secretary of State recognised, this is a difficult problem—switching resources to places with the most need within the service which is not easy to achieve, as he said. The House should congratulate him on his effort. But I


hope that he is aware of its dangers. The hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) referred to this matter when she spoke to the Co-operative Party conference. Talking about mental hospitals, he said, according to The Times:
These could not be improved without spending more money, and she did not believe, within the health service resources, that more could be spent on the hospitals for mentally sub-normal without doing serious damage to other sections.
There is that danger. Perhaps with reductance, regional boards found, in following the instruction of the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor, that difficulty reflected the dilemma in which he has put some regional boards.
There is danger in the bland assumption—and I do not charge the Secretary of State with having made it, but some people have done so—that by a mixture of increasing management efficiency, by the better use of available resources and by leaving the rest to an expansion which one day will happen, the Health Service does not need a greater proportion of our national effort devoted to it.
Again, I quote from The Times, when it referred to:
A growing number of hospitals…running into new financial difficulties because of the recent spate of Government recommendations for improving the hospital service. Many are seriously embarrassed because of increasing pressure to carry out the reforms although they are not given the money to do so. Since last July the Ministry has sent about 35 guidance circulars to hospital authorities. Recommendations in many of these could be very expensive to carry out. About 70 other circulars were concerned mainly with pay and conditions. Recommendations which hospitals fear will be expensive including improvements in post-graduate education, better conditions for longstay and psychiatric patients, general advice on diets, and exhortations to make a start on the Salmon report's proposals…".
These are all admirable and desirable things. However, The Times also said that:
One regional hospital board treasurer in the North-West said there was a national problem and it was growing worse. The United Sheffield Hospitals board, in a report published yesterday, said that in spite of drastic economies last year the budget was overspent by £12,000.
The treasurer of another hospital board said
that his board was under extreme pressure because the Ministry recommendations created higher demands from the public.
The danger is that unless more resources are devoted to health the problem

of spoiling many ships for a ha'porth of tar will be very great.
The Secretary of State must give the House a clear answer on these matters and on how increasing costs will be met. Perhaps I could recommend to him the Daily Mirror, which, in a courageous and realistic article, said:
The concept of an entirely free National Health Service was altruistic: in office, it is an impracticable concept".

Mr. Stanley Orme: Absolute nonsense.

Mr. Macmillan: The hon. Gentleman says "Nonsense". What does the Secretary of State say? Does he say "Nonsense"? If so, is taxation going up? Are charges going up? We do not know, and we should like to know today. The right hon. Gentleman must have looked beyond 1970–71, although perhaps with less urgent interest in the knowledge that his direct responsibility and that of his Government will be minimal or improbable.
I should like to know whether some of the figures which have been suggested to me are likely to be right. It is suggested that, assuming that nothing much more is done in the Health Service, the cost will be running at about £2,500 million a year by 1974–75, of which about £2,000 million will come from the taxpayer. I should like to know whether this sort of level is an acceptable charge in total and to the taxpayer. I think that it probably is, since it represents roughly the same proportions that we have today.
But this increase makes no allowance for any greater expenditure. It makes no allowance for implementing the Todd Report or the Zuckerman Report, or improving nurses' pay and salaries and junior hospital doctors' salaries and conditions. If we are to do anything at all, by 1974–75 the Health Service will cost much more, in the neighbourhood of £2,750 million.
It has been recommended by many people that we should bring up the level of our expenditure to that now enjoyed in Canada and the United States—which, incidentally, is beginning to be regarded as inadequate. If we were to do that, we should have to be spending well over £3,000 million a year.
On these figures, it becomes clear that there is no question of finding all the


extra money which is required from taxation. As a result, we have to face some system of insurance, charges, or increased contributions. We on this side of the House have recognised always that the taxpayer's commitment can only be limited by some form of payment for the service when it is used; in other words, some form of charges, with safeguards.
The alternative is for some form of contribution when people are well; that is to say, some form of insurance or social security tax. The third possibility is a combination of both. That is a view which is gaining support on both sides of the House and among interested and knowledgeable people who have no political affiliation.
I would ask the Secretary of State what he has considered. Has he considered on the capital side, for example, financing hospital building by some method of borrowing from the public, using public savings, perhaps in conjunction with contractual savings? Has he considered tax reliefs on charities, including hospitals and other health projects, such as are now used with considerable success in Canada and the United States? Has he considered a more flexible system of hospital finance on capital account, with longer-term budgeting and allowing a wider use of gifts not confined completely to amenities?
Has the right hon. Gentleman considered any form of encouragement to private provision for health? Has he considered the possibility of allowing hospitals to retain a proportion of the charges that they make for private beds? What has he done in the way of considering a more effective use of resources? Can he say on what cost-effectiveness studies he has embarked? Has he considered the burden of motor car accidents, which cost the service £20 million a year, of which only £600,000 is collected, and that very expensively? Has he considered a method of taking that burden off the taxpayer and putting it where it belongs, on the motorist? Why should motorists rely on their insurance companies to mend their cars, but on the taxpayer to mend their bodies that their cars break?
We really want more information on the wider issue. Does the right hon. Gentleman favour or look askance at

the general plan on the lines suggested by his right hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby? Has he considered variations of the different plans in Europe, where the cost is met largely through an earnings-related social security contribution which enables a patient to claim back a proportion of the total cost, normally amounting to between 70 and 80 per cent.? Has he thought of any variations on the insurance scheme? The health element in his new wage-related package scheme seems to be at about the same level as it is now. It is a little different in that there will be a small element of buoyancy in it, but it will not be significantly different.
There are many methods with which the House will be familiar, and we do not ask him to specify any one now. All that we ask him to say is whether he has considered any of them, or whether he is still firmly wedded to the principle of a Health Service which is free at the point of use. If he wants to maintain the promise of the 1964 election manifesto, which was met in 1965 by abolishing prescription charges and restoring them 18 months later, how is he to meet it? Does he pretend that it can be met in the future, and, if not, what is his alternative?
If the right hon. Gentleman means to go on record now saying that the future policy of the Labour Government and the Labour Party as a whole will be at all costs to have a Health Service free at the point of use, does he propose to increase taxation to pay for it, or will he let it deteriorate, drive people unwillingly to private provision and rely more and more on immigrant doctors who suffer exploitation because the experience that they gain here is valuable to them and is needed in their home countries?
It ought not to be too difficult to answer that question. Even if it involves a total reversal of Government policy, it should not be too difficult. We have seen it often enough in the past weeks. In any event, the right hon. Gentleman cannot exactly reverse what does not exist. His policy for pensions finance is simple. It is to pile up a large but uncertain debt for our children to pay. In itself, it is a massive increase in contributions which is partly a tax, on top of huge increases in general taxation


and at a time of higher rates, prices and unemployment.
As for the Health Service finance policy, where is the consistency? In January, 1965, prescription charges were abolished. June, 1968, saw them back again and increased from Is. to 2s. 6d. In May, 1969, the 25 per cent. increase was announced, and now, in July, we still await the regulations. We do not know when they will come in or what they will contain. We know that more money is needed from charges, from contributions or from taxation. There is no other source.
The Secretary of State has described himself as a compulsive communicator. In the course of the debate, will he please communicate his policy, the Government's policy and the Labour Party's policy, preferably in one policy, though I accept that there may be divergences between the three? If he does not, in his capacity as the Minister in charge of health, one will be inclined to speak to him in the words of that old ditty:
The other day upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
Oh, how I wish he'd go away.

4.7 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Social Services (Mr. Richard Crossman): I want to start by thanking the hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. Maurice Macmillan) for the tone in which he introduced the debate and the questions which he asked. They proved that I guessed right and that, after some personal persiflage at the beginning, he wanted to ask some serious questions. From a Tory spokesman, I did not expect any constructive answers. I have never heard so many questions asked in one speech.
It is worth remembering that we have an Opposition who claim to be responsible. During the debate, it is to be hoped that other right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite will be a little more constructive in indicating what they would do. However, I shall try to deal precisely with the hon. Gentleman's questions, because they should be asked. The problem of financing a health service is a real one, most of all for the Minister in charge.
I also want to thank the hon. Member for beginning by fairly analysing the

causes of the problem. It is worth noticing that it is right to scrutinise the Health Service today, because it comes of age on Saturday, 5th July, 1969. This is an excellent time at which to appraise its development.
I would add two figures to those which the hon. Gentleman gave. In the first full year of Nye Bevan's Health Service, expenditure was £455 million. I think that it is true to say that Sir Stafford Cripps thought it rather a lot. Today, 20 years later, it is just under £2,000 million, at £1,942 million. When one takes the effect of pay and prices from those figures, whereas its money cost has quadrupled since 1949, its real cost has just about doubled. As the hon. Gentleman said, the share that the Health Service now takes of the gross national product has increased from 4 per cent. 10 years ago to nearly 5 per cent, today, and the increase in the real cost since we were in power is 23 per cent. That is why there was one unfair thing in what the hon. Gentleman said. He implied that there was a question of cutback. There has been no question of a cut-back of the Health Service; there has been an enormous expansion.
Let us take the hospital building programme, which we have doubled in five years. We now have a proper programme for the first time since the war. What we are discussing is not how to face cuts but how to sustain this astonishing development which we have undertaken and, I add, how to ensure that we have enough revenue to operate for the capital equipment that we have produced. It is no good producing hospitals and then having to close them down because we cannot afford to keep them up.
Before I come to the question of finance I want to follow the hon. Gentleman in analysing whether the process of increasing expenditure is inevitable: must we look forward to hospital services and to a Health Service in general taking more of the national resources. I believe that we must, and that the explanation takes us right back to the Beveridge Report. In 1944, we assumed that if we could only introduce a comprehensive Health Service the improvement in the health of the nation would flatten out the costs within a few years. We would all keep healthy and it would not cost anything to keep us alive.
That was one of the many basic fallacies of the Beveridge Report. In real life, what happens is that the Service—and I give the hon. Gentleman credit for his fairness in mentioning this—instead of satisfying demand stimulates it. It is not true in the case of health that demand stimulates the service; it is precisely true that the service stimulates demand.
But there is another reason which I want to mention, because it is sometimes forgotten. One of the heaviest of those costs which were not predicted arose because of our carrying out the principle of levelling up the service for the individual, for the group and for the region. It is true that by a stroke of the pen and creating the service we took the dollar sign out of health and made everybody equal, theoretically, in terms of hospital treatment. That was only the beginning. One of the main inequalities was between the regions in 1948.
Let me give a simple case. Most of the crack hospitals were concentrated in London, whereas England, north of the Trent, had more than its share of decrepit public assistance institutions and shocking buildings, often with very low standards. Instead of levelling London down we decided to level the provinces up, and this process has been continued ever since. Even so, there is a long way to go before the process is completed and the gravely over-privileged region of London is overtaken by the Midlands and the North. This process of levelling up is costing us far more money on the Health Service than Nye Bevan expected.
The second grave inequality was the inequality between different groups of patients, and especially between the patient in an acute hospital and the one in a long-stay hospital, such as a geriatric hospital or a hospital for the mentally subnormal. Once again, the Health Service inherited a deplorable state of inequality and injustice as between groups of patients. In some long-stay hospitals there were absolutely Dickensian conditions.
Let me give one example. In 1953, the number of beds for mental illness represented about 36 per cent. of the total of all beds, but we were spending only about 15 per cent. of hospital money on

those beds. The people concerned were under-privileged patients. Some progress has been made. The proportion of mental illness beds—thank heavens, by means of a breakthrough in treatment—has been reduced from 36 per cent. to 29 per cent., while mental illness beds still receive 15 per cent. of hospital money. Even so, there is a huge gap, that we all know of, between what is provided or assumed to be necessary for patients in mental hospitals and subnormal hospitals in particular, and what is provided for those in acute hospitals.
I now turn to another inherent factor, which is the speed of advance in medical science, drug development and modern techniques of surgery. One of the best examples is that of the kidney machine. It is greatly to the credit of my right hon. Friend the Minister who preceded me that—I believe I am right in saying this—we invested £1 million in saving the lives of people with kidney disease. We invested £1 million in the capital equipment required to do this. The treatment of chronic renal failure requires the provision of about £2,500 of capital equipment for each additional patient and an annual running cost per patient of between £2,000 and £2,500.
Total expenditure on intermittent dialysis, which was negligible five years ago—before the great plan was launched—is now about £2 million a year. Some people fondly imagine that kidney transplants will replace intermittent dialysis and reduce costs. The contrary is true, I fear. Their success, which is already remarkable, will probably require not less but more intermittent dialysis, and we shall then have the transplants and the dialysis to pay for. We shall be saving more lives, but we shall be discovering that we can treat more people with the disease. That is the essence of the problem of the hospital service.
Not all medical ingenuity and science necessarily costs money. Everyone knows how the conquest of tuberculosis in the 1950s produced a huge unseen subsidy to the Health Service and, incidentally, to national insurance. Let me take another example, which is more recent and less well known, namely, the revolutionary modern treatment of varicose veins—one of the commonest causes of admission to hospital all over the country. More and more this complaint is now being


treated largely by techniques which can be given to out-patients, thus saving admissions to hospital. Instead of at least one week in hospital most patients can now be treated while still active and living at home—and the cost is about one-fifth of that of the older method. Here there is a genuine case of saving.
But the savings do not equal the increases in expenditure, and the inherent fact is that if we are to keep up, as we are keeping up, with the population increase and the other factors we must assume that more of the national resources will go to the Health Service in the next five years than it did in the last five years.
The hon. Gentleman was quite right to ask me how I think that this vastly expanding service should be paid for. He mentioned three ways in which the Health Service could be financed, namely, taxation, including rates—and I suppose that the hon. Gentleman was assuming that there is now a great difference in distribution as between money from taxation and money from local authorities—secondly, the National Health Service contribution, about which I shall have something more to say later; thirdly, the charges levied upon the users of certain parts of the National Health Service; and, finally, payment for private services either through contributions to a private insurance or provident scheme like B.U.P.A. or by direct payment to the doctor or nursing home. The last named would not pay for the Health Service, but it would reduce the theoretical cost by creating a private health service.
I want to examine each of the four possibilities. At present, the Health Service is financed to the extent of 85½ per cent. from taxation, central and local; 9½ per cent. from the National Health Service contribution and 5 per cent. from charges, including those for amenity beds, and privately paying patients. Let me repeat those figures; 85½ per cent. from taxation, 9½ per cent. from the national insurance contribution and 5 per cent. from charges. So the bulk of the money comes overwhelmingly from taxation, Os in 1948.
I was asked by the hon. Gentleman whether we were wise—so near the 21st birthday of the service—to say that taxation is the only thing that we should rely

on, or whether we should include the other three. Here, we can learn something from the past. It is true that relying heavily upon taxation means that the Health Service is inevitably at risk during an economic crisis. The danger is not so much that there will be an absolute cut in the service, but that there will be a slow-down in the rate of expansion. Everybody who knows about Whitehall knows that in a period of crisis there is always a risk, with a great spending Department, if all the money comes from taxation, that pressure will be exerted.
I accept that, but I say straight away that in my view there is no doubt whatsoever that the greater part of what we raise will always have to come from taxation—rates and taxes. I am prepared later to consider the use of the National Health Service contribution under a new form, and after we have introduced our new national insurance law.

Mr. R. H. Turton: Will the Secretary of State split up the 85½ per cent. between local and central taxation?

Mr. Crossman: I do not have the figure here, but my guess is that it is about five-sixths central and one-sixth local. But I am a bad guesser and I do not ask the right hon. Gentleman to take that as correct; he had better ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary.
Before we do anything else, if we are to be realistic we must compare these diffent methods of finance rather more closely. All of them ultimately fall on the workers and their families, though there are important differences in the way this happens and in the impact of the burden. Taxation does not consist only of tax, income tax and surtax. We must remember that an ever-larger proportion of our revenue comes from taxes on alcohol and tobacco, and from rates, which can hardly be considered the most socially progressive tax in the world. All of them fall with particular severity on lower-paid workers.
We must remember, also, that the employer's Health Service contribution falls ultimately on the things which we buy in the shops, on the cost of living and on exports. The employee's contribution to the service comes directly out of his wage packet and is deducted before he gets it.
All the alternatives that people talk of are only alternative methods for extracting money from the same lot of pockets. This is a thought which we must face, and it is a thought which any Secretary of State for Social Services has to face. It is important which way it is done, so as to produce fairness and justice, but we shall not find another place from which the money can be raised.
I want, first, to deal with the possibility of a larger private sector, and perhaps hon. Gentlemen will mention this. I have a feeling that many Conservatives outside the House of Commons are toying with this idea. What attitude should we take to the different ways of relieving the taxpayer of part of the cost of the Health Service? Could we, for instance, give encouragement to provident insurance, to B.U.P.A. and similar schemes? Since I thought that my hon. Friends would like to study the private sector and know something about it. for very little is written about it, I have collected some facts about provident schemes to give to the House.
In the year ended 30th June, 1968, the schemes collected £14 million and paid out £12 million in benefits. The total number of registrations was 800,000, the largest number being in B.U.P.A., which had 650,000 registrations and provided benefits to 1¼ million adults and children. People who can afford it have a good material reason for wanting to be private patients and thus to join provident schemes.
It is not unlike a fee-paying school. What they are buying is a greater chance of choosing when they are admitted to hospital for an operation which is not urgent. They are buying, also, the right to choose their consultant, and to ensure that their consultant actually is there and does the operation. Thirdly, they are avoiding a lot of waiting around in the out-patients' department. For busy people these are advantages which have their price.
The question which I raise this afternoon is this. Should any encouragement be given to these people? Should we, for instance, allow a contribution to such a scheme as a deduction from income tax, as is done in the United States of America, or would it be possible to allow

people with a certain amount of private insurance to contract out?
The further question which will be raised from the other side is this. In other social services, notably housing and pensions, we have encouraged a partnership between the private sector and the public sector. Why, I shall be asked, should not we extend the same principle to the Health Service and encourage contracting out into private enterprise? If more people were purchasing their health services on a private basis, the limited money which we could raise in taxes and contributions could be spent on a reduced number of users of the service. This argument will be heard louder and louder in the coming months up to the election.
Exactly the same argument is used about private education, and there we can already see the effect of a much larger private sector and the complexities which result for the State system.
My answer, in a nutshell, is this. If registrations with provident schemes increased from 1¼ to, say, 5 million, the Health Service would soon become a second-class service. At present, virtually all the leading doctors treat Health Service patients, and the majority of their time is contracted to the Service. Health Service patients know that they can obtain medical care from our leading doctors, or at least from those doctors' firms.
If the private sector or insurance became dominant, there might well be a considerable number of leading consultants who treated only private patients. Some might work only in private hospitals. We could no longer claim that all citizens, whatever their means, were able to obtain the same standard of medical care.
If this were allowed to happen as a method of economising on money, the comprehensive service would be destroyed, and a service which was felt to be socially superior would be permitted to grow up by its side.

Mr. Dudley Smith: Does the Secretary of State agree that the private sector is growing substantially, in which case, if his party remains in power, does he ultimately intend to abolish the private sector?

Mr. Crossman: I gave the figures. There is some sign of growth, but it is


interesting that the growth has been limited to 1¼ million people, including wives and children. It is at present a very small sector compared to the private sector in education. I have called attention to the fact that to encourage it to develop may relieve the Health Service of a little expenditure but would effectively destroy the service.
I now turn to charges. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we should this afternoon discuss what rôle they can play in financing the Health Service. I gather from him that he thought that they could play a very large rôle, although he did not make it clear how. In discussing this issue I shall not deal in detail with the particular proposal to increase the charges for dentures and spectacles which I announced recently. I prefer to reserve the case for these relatively minor increases for the debate which no doubt will take place after I have laid the regulations, which I intend to do at an early date.
In this debate it is important to consider charges in general, and to ask ourselves whether they can or should be regarded, as some people regard them, as an alternative to taxation. But the charges in the Health Service are a very mixed bag and many of them are surprisingly uncontroversial. Consider, for example, the charges which we levy for Part III accommodation for a place in an old people's home, for the services of a home help or for a child looked after in a day nursery. Charges are levied for all these services and they have long been regarded as perfectly reasonable and are almost universally accepted as a very minor but perfectly fair method of paying part of the cost of our services.
The same applies to amenity beds. There are many who feel that pay beds should be abolished altogether. They are dwindling, but the case for providing amenity beds and charging for them has been accepted ever since the Service started, so that when I recently announced an increase in the charges for amenity beds to cover the cost the announcement passed almost without notice, and I do not think that a single hon. Member put down a Question.
There was almost as little reaction when my predecessor announced last year an increase in the charges for dentistry. On that occasion one reason why the increase was so little discussed was the

fact that it was overshadowed by the controversy over the restoration of prescription charges. That controversy still continues. Now that I have been seeing the problem at first hand for some months, I find myself in ever closer accord with the feelings and views of my predecessor. I am sure that he was right to choose what he felt to be the lesser evil and to accept health charges in order to protect the hospital service. Nevertheless, the decision leaves us with a most difficult problem to resolve. I am sure that it can and will be resolved.
Meanwhile, there is one thing I have to say in relation to the debate about charges, in answer to the question from the hon. Gentleman the Member for Farnham. It is not my view that charges, even if one develops them as far as possible, could ever provide more than a minor auxiliary support to other forms of finance.

Mr. Orme: Why have them?

Mr. Crossman: I went into some detail in answer to the question that was put to me about this matter. There are two other charges that one could seriously consider. One is in relation to the hospital bed; the other the visit to the doctor. Both are outrageous. Between them, I reckon that they could hardly raise more than £30 million a year. The total amount, if one were to extend the system as far as possible, does not get up to £90 million a year out of the £1,500 million, and the suggestion brings with it appalling administrative problems, not to say a couple of political problems as well. Therefore, I say clearly that one can rule out charges as a substantial answer to the problem of finding alternative sources of revenue for the Health Service.

Mr. Tim Fortescue: The right hon. Gentleman has made his point clearly, but he has announced, almost in the same breath, that shortly he will lay regulations to increase charges for dentures and spectacles by 25 per cent. If the effect is so minimal, and the process is so useless, why is he taking such action?

Mr. Crossman: We will leave that matter to a debate on a later occasion.

Mr. Maurice Macmillan: I was not advocating increased charges, but was


putting forward the view that they could be significant. I was asking what the Minister's view was.

Mr. Crossman: My view is that, however hard one tries, they should not be made more than a small factor—a useful adjunct, but only an adjunct, to the major source of finance. If one is not to rely exclusively on taxation and is not to hand over to a private sector, if one is not to expand charges, one is left with the possibility of a higher health contribution. At present, we pay for nearly 10 per cent. of the cost of the National Health Service through flat-rate National Health Service contribution. In the White Paper on National Superannuation we propose that these contributions should become earnings related. Employees would pay one half per cent. of earnings up to the ceiling and employers would pay a half per cent. of their payroll.
Could more money be raised by gradually enlarging the Health Service contribution? Suppose, for example, that the taxpayer were to pay for the first £1,000 million of the service and the new earnings-related contribution paid for the expansion of the service beyond that point. This has been suggested to me by a number of Socialists, and it is something that one ought seriously to consider, for it follows the principle that one should pay for the service when one is healthy and not when one is ill. With earnings-related benefit we should remove an intolerable injustice from the lower-paid worker that is imposed on him by flat-rate contribution.
But there are one or two quite serious problems to be faced. We have always spoken about a comprehensive Health Service for every citizen. With contributions by employees and self-employed persons certain people will be excluded from contribution. Will they be entitled to that part of the Health Service which is covered by contribution? I put the point because we are discussing introducing a contributory principle into a universal system available to every citizen. The two principles must be taken together. This is made even more complex since we are moving towards earnings-relation since all earnings-related contributions will earn earnings-related benefit. There we are introducing

with an earnings-related pension a contribution geared to the benefit. In the earnings-related Health Service contribution we would all get the same benefit.

Mr. Orme: Is there not a danger that, as with other earnings-related benefits and with the Minister's pension scheme, if he is not careful the burden can fall heavily on a certain income group, particularly the skilled workers earning between £20 and £30 a week? Such a group has already been asked to bear a terribly heavy burden.

Mr. Crossman: These are the kinds of consideration I have to have in mind. I am merely saying that if we are asked to consider the matter, this is the only proposition that I have found to be even worthy of consideration. It must be remembered that the higher-paid worker, if he does not pay a contribution, will probably pay income tax at the full standard rate. One has to work these things out.
The hon. Member for Farnham put to me one further point. It is true that in a considerable number of countries in Europe social security contributions play a much larger rôle in the financing of health services than they do in Britain. In none of these countries is there any difficulty in combining earnings-related contribution with a single unitary service without classes or differences in it. To take an example from the Commonwealth, the New Zealanders have for years demanded varying contributions towards the cost of the service from their workers, but a standard single health service is available for all. Therefore, that particular objection is not final.
We have been considering so far the employees' contribution. There is another aspect we can have in mind. Whatever may be felt about the principle of earnings-related contribution paid by the employee for medical care, there cannot be the same objection to the employer paying a percentage of pay roll for the Health Service. There are strong arguments why the employer should pay a considerable share of the cost of the medical care given to his employee. After all, part of the need for medical care is generated by the fact of employment—for example, industrial accidents and prescribed diseases. Moreover, if the Health Service ceased to exist, I suspect


that many employers would be willing to subscribe to some type of private health insurance scheme to cover their employees for medical care. Employers have a definite interest in securing that their employees obtain swift and efficient treatment and return to work as soon as possible. It is worth considering whether, in the expansion of the health services which we all want to see, the employers' contribution should play a more important rôle.
In this respect, our White Paper on National Superannuation has green edges. I did not have much to say about the National Health Service contribution. I should be interested to hear a discussion of the pros and cons of moving towards contribution to the service on a much enlarged basis; whether it should be on a 50–50 basis between employer and employee, or whether the employee should pay up to 70 per cent. as he does in France, Italy and in Sweden. Those are the questions. I have tried my hardest to respond to the hon. Member for Farnham and to deal with them as directly as I can.

Mr. Paul Dean: Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves that point about the employer's contribution, which is an extremely interesting one, can he say whether he thinks it would be practicable to put an additional burden on the employer at the same time as the new pension scheme is coming into operation, or is he thinking much more in the long term?

Mr. Crossman: I was definitely thinking of the matter in the long term as related to the White Paper and to 1972. I myself do not think that we could introduce this without the earnings-related contribution which we need from it. If we want to remove the injustice to the lower-paid worker, we have to move from a flat-rate national health contribution to an earnings-related contribution. Otherwise, we would be making the lower-paid worker pay 6d. or 9d. extra on the flat rate for his Health Service, and he would not thank us for that. Indeed, I suspect that he might prefer to have a few prescription charges instead.
I know that we shall get from this side of the House a number of constructive speeches, because there are some hon. Friends behind me who have spent a lot

of time thinking about the future of the Health Service and are not prepared merely to say that it must always remain the same. Who is to pay? We should be prepared to think about these things. I believe that we on this side are. I am curious to know when we shall have evidence from hon. Members opposite of a wish to contribute something constructive towards the debate.

4.41 p.m.

Mr. Charles Morrison: My hon. Friend the Member for Farnham (Mr. Maurice Macmillan) painted a somewhat gloomy picture of the finances of the Health Service. At least, the Secretary of State agreed that there are considerable problems attached to its financing. The House will have been relieved that the Secretary of State has removed the cloud of uncertainty about the proposals for increasing the cost of spectacles and dentures. I have no doubt that the House will look forward with fear and doubt to the debate on that subject whenever it may occur.
I was a little surprised by the Secretary of State. When he started his speech, he accused my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham of putting forward no constructive ideas, and yet he ended his speech by saying that he had dealt with all the ideas that had been put forward by my hon. Friend. That seemed to be a little contradictory, perhaps not for the first time in the Secretary of State's history.
The right hon. Gentleman also expressed pride at the percentage increase in the total amount of expenditure on the Health Service. That would have been quite good stuff for elections. Had there been some by-elections, which we wish had been taking place, it might have helped the Labour Party minimally. Regrettably, however, no elections are forthcoming. In reality, of course, what the Secretary of State said was not particularly helpful to a rather serious debate like this when we are considering how to cope with the continuing problem of growing demand.
The reasons why that demand is growing and, consequently, why we are concerned about the Health Service finances are, I think, generally agreed. The population is increasing, the cost of development is rising and as capital investment proceeds and increases, so, too, does


revenue expenditure. As medicines and medical equipment become more and more sophisticated, their cost, too, is bound to increase. The figures produced by the Secretary of State were startling although, at the same time, they were in many ways reassuring, because they show what is being done. This does not, however, make the problem which we are debating any easier to overcome.
Research continually decreases the sphere of illness for which treatment cannot be given and thus, again, demand for treatment and medicine steadily grows. All these things together are bound to mean that the cost of the Health Service will grow at what the Secretary of State, the Minister responsible or the Chancellor of the Exchequer will certainly consider to be an alarming rate. These considerations come on top of the known deficiencies in provision within the Health Service, in mental hospitals and in general hospitals, in provision for the old and in the pay and working conditions of many Health Service personnel.
What, therefore, is to be done? The Secretary of State accused my hon. Friend of putting forward no constructive ideas, but when one tried to add up what constructive ideas the right hon. Gentleman himself put forward, one could not draw any firm conclusions. It is obvious that the Service must continue and must, so far as is possible, improve. It must be available to everyone. But how is it to be paid for? There are only two possible alternative ways of assisting us towards overcoming the problem. The first is savings within the Health Service and the second is the possibility of increasing resources.
In the main, I do not believe that there is very much opportunity for saving. The Government may reallocate resources. They may change the direction and emphasis of their investment. They may, for example, reallocate money from the general hospitals to the mental hospitals to meet a sudden need which has been brought to light. That, however, is robbing Peter to pay Paul and soon the process will have to be reversed.
There is, however, one sphere in which I think that savings could be made, and that is in administration. Last week, I

wrote a letter to the Parliamentary Secretary enclosing six envelopes which had been addressed to one family in one house in my constituency. The letters were addressed to the husband and the wife and their four children, aged between one year and 10 years. The envelopes were addressed by hand. For each, a postal charge was paid. Each envelope contained a card about the local doctor's surgery times and the cards had been sent by the local health executive.
It is important that people should know what time they can attend a doctor's surgery, but if each and every member of one family received individual cards, doubtless every family in the area of the doctor in question—and, probably, of other doctors—received similar cards and similar treatment. Surely this is a blatant example of Parkinson's law. It really looks as though junior staff have been employed and those in authority have then scratched their heads to try to think up a way of using them and have set them all to addressing envelopes by hand.
I cannot believe that it is necessary for more than one card of that nature to be delivered to each house. I know that it is foolish to draw general conclusions from one case, and I realise that the Parliamentary Secretary could not possibly have replied to me yet, but I look forward to his reply. The case to which I have referred demonstrates that there is scope for saving on administration within the Health Service. Therefore, I should like to know from the Minister, when he replies to the debate, what running system of review of administration goes on in his Department. Clearly, judging by my experience, whatever review takes place, it cannot be wholly satisfactory.
Nevertheless, I believe that the opportunity for major savings in the Health Service must be limited. If, therefore, the Health Service is to maintain its standards, let alone improve them, for an increasing population, somehow it must find more resources. As we have already heard, there are three methods which could be used: first, increased taxes, including contributions; secondly, increased charges and a widening of the scope of charges; and, thirdly, the attracting of private resources.
First, increased taxes and contributions. The Secretary of State said that the greater part of the finances of the Health Service would always come from taxation and I am sure that he is right—one could not disagree with him on that—but heaven forbid that taxes should be increased still more. Apart from the added burden on the country, such an exercise would be self-defeating, as everyone must realise from the results of the increased burden of taxation that the country has had to bear during the last four-and-a-half years.
The Secretary of State referred to what happened in certain other European countries. It may be that the contributions in those countries are higher than in this country, but even if that is so I believe that at the same time their rates of direct taxation are lower, and I think that this should be borne in mind. I think that contributions can be raised a little, and perhaps gradually, but only a little, and in any case I am not convinced such an exercise will provide more than an extra drop in the ocean since, again as the Secretary of State said, only 9½ per cent. of Health Service resources come from contributions.
Then there is the question of increased charges and the widening of their scope. This is always a possibility, and it is something which must always be under discussion, but it is not a subject which I view with any great pleasure.
The Government were, in theory, opposed to any charges, so they abolished the prescription charge of Is., only to replace it 18 months later with a charge of 2s. 6d. This may have demonstrated the deterioration in the value of money in the intervening period, but mainly it showed how desperate was the need of the Health Service and how much money was required.
In principle, I think that a prescription charge can be commended, but I am continually worried about the exemption categories. However they are framed, there are bound to be, and there are, anomalies, and every hon. Member must realise this from his constituency post. Because of this difficulty, and because of those who are most affected—the less well off, the elderly, and so on—I do not believe there is much scope for raising the charges further, nor for extending them. Although the Secretary of State

told us he was going to raise the charges, even he seemed to be doubtful whether it was all that worth while.
Thus, we are forced back to a more detailed consideration of the question of attracting money from private resources. Can such money be attracted, and can it be attracted to a worth-while degree? I believe that the answer is "Yes", given the incentive. I believe money can be attracted under two headings, general, and personal.
By general I mean, in effect, charitable gifts to which my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham referred. At present, there is a seven-year covenant system, but many firms and individuals are reluctant to commit themselves for so long. Like many hon. Members, from time to time I receive requests from charities for subscriptions or covenants, and increasingly I find myself unwilling to commit myself for seven years ahead. I believe, therefore, that it is high time our charity laws were reviewed with the objective of giving a tax relief on gifts to recognised charities. This is done in the United States of America, and it could be done here. I believe that it would be of benefit, not just to the Health Service finances, but to such other spheres as sport and the arts, and I think that the benefit could be very considerable, indeed.
I turn to what I call the personal aspect. I think that my hon. Friend, even if not the Government, will agree that it is right to encourage private provision. Already, as the Secretary of State said, in the Health Service 1¼ million people benefit from, or subscribe indirectly to, B.U.P.A. Why not give them tax relief on their subscriptions? I should perhaps declare my interest as a subscriber, but I believe that if tax relief was given the 1¼ million subscribers would be multiplied several times over, and there would be a large net gain to the Health Service. As a refinement to please the Secretary of State, perhaps it would be possible to give tax relief only on incomes below a certain level. I throw it out as an incentive to the right hon. Gentleman.
The right hon. Gentleman is not, apparently, in favour of expanding the private side of the Health Service because he feels that if that were done the service would become, and would be thought of as, second-class. I disagree with the


right hon. Gentleman totally about that, because I believe that the private resources which would be gathered in and attracted would relieve the Health Service of some of the burdens which it is at present carrying. It would then be able to spend the available money to greater advantage and in that way everyone making use of the Health Service, whether privately or publicly, would benefit.
There are two reasons why I think that tax relief would be no breach of principle. First, we give tax relief to encourage private provision in housing, in pensions, and for life insurance. Why not give tax relief for health as well? Second, and perhaps more important, where firms co-operate in group B.U.P.A. schemes, employers' contributions already receive relief from corporation tax, and, therefore, there would be no new principle involved by giving personal relief as well.
It is in the sphere of attracting private resources that the greatest hope of improving the financial situation of the Health Service lies. It is no use burying our heads in the sand, or going round and round in circles and coming up with no answer to the problem. There is clearly a very real problem which cannot be solved by further raids on the Exchequer, because that cupboard is bare, and dreaming alone will not fill it.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harry Gourlay): Order. I remind right hon. and hon. Members that this is a short debate, and that short speeches may enable most hon. Members to participate.

4.58 p.m.

Mr. David Marquand: I participate in this debate with a great deal of diffidence, not being by any means an expert on the Health Service. I do participate because I am one of those who feel very passionately about the whole question of how in a democracy where there is considerable public resistance to paying greater taxation, this party can reallocate more resources to public expenditure and away from private consumption.
I want to talk about National Health Service finances as a particular case of

that general problem. Before I turn to the financial aspects that we have been looking at so far this afternoon, I wonder if I could make one plea to my right hon. Friend which might appeal to him, not only in his capacity as Secretary of State for Social Services, but in his old rôas Leader of the House and a leading Parliamentary reformer. It seems to me that this debate is taking place in far too narrow a framework. We cannot sensibly debate the problem of financing the Health Service in isolation from the general problem of financing the social services as a whole.
Moreover, we cannot sensibly debate financing any of the social services without considering the way in which the money is spent. Health, social security and all the other social services compete for limited resources. If we are to decide what proportion should go to any one claimant, we must compare the efficiency with which it spends the resources it gets with the efficiency of the other claimants.
In the last few months, the Treasury has taken an important step forward, which will enormously help the House to debate this question sensibly in future, by publishing the Green Paper on the presentation of public expenditure. This says that in future they intend to publish an annual White Paper giving forward projections for all public expenditure.
But that step forward is only a very small one, and for it to be really valuable to the House it should be supplemented by the rapid adoption of output budgets by the spending Departments. This would enable hon. Members to know on what particular objective and how efficiently money is being spent. I understand that the Department of Education and Science has already carried out a feasibility study of an output budget in education. Is such a study contemplated for health expenditure? When may we expect one? Only when we get these output budgets for the whole range of domestic expenditure shall we be able to discuss priorities and choices sensibly.
The narrow question of financing health expenditure has been bedevilled by two opposing sets of dogmas. The first is the dogma, which has not yet been expressed, but which probably will


be expressed from the other side, associated with the Institute of Economic Affairs—that the only sensible and liberal way to allocate resources, here as in any other field, is the free market. This approach underlay the contribution of the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Charles Morrison), and little bits of it could be detected peeping out from the bland evasions of the hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. Maurice Macmillan).
That dogma is wholly inappropriate to a sensible discussion of this question. If incomes are unequally distributed, the free market cannot allocate resources equitably, but inevitably increases the distortions and inequities which exist already. This applies to health as to any other social service.
But there is another dogma, which we have not yet heard, but which we may hear from this side of the House. This says that for health there must be no charges at all, that all health charges are wicked and must be removed as soon as possible. This dogma seems to be based on two assumptions, with one of which, I was glad to see, my right hon. Friend has already dealt. The first is the assumption that charges are necessarily a much more inequitable method of raising finance than taxation, that taxation is progressive and charges are regressive.
In fact, as my right hon. Friend said, taxes are not all that progressive in this country. I should like to live in a society in which they were—in which all taxation was raised by progressive income tax and none at all by regressive taxes on expenditure. But no one believes that that is politically practicable for the foreseeable future. At the moment only about half the Government's revenue is raised by taxes on income. The rest is raised by taxes which are not even meant to be progressive. So the belief that to finance the National Health Service out of general taxation is somehow more Socialist because general taxation is progressive cannot stand up to examination.
Nor do I accept the argument that it is wrong to levy any charges in the Health Service on the grounds that because sickness is involuntary charges on sickness are peculiarly inhumane. All kinds of expenditure are involuntary. Take my personal case, which may seem trivial but which in my view is not. I wear spectacles

and also, for some unknown reason, wear out my shoes quickly. I seem to spend more than the average on footwear. It is involuntary expenditure, caused no doubt by the clumsy way I walk—as involuntary as my expenditure on spectacles.
I cannot see why it is utterly wicked and wrong to say that I should pay a contribution for my spectacles if at the same time I am expected to pay the whole cost of my footwear, which is at least as necessary to me. Indeed, had I to choose between the two, I would probably choose footwear—

Mr. Douglas Houghton: My hon. Friend may be entitled to surgical shoes, in which case he would pay a charge comparable to that which he pays for his spectacles, and justice would be done.

Mr. Marquand: I was not aware that I would have to pay a charge for surgical shoes, but the fact that I would reinforces my point. So I cannot accept the dogma that there should be no charge in health because sickness is involuntary.
The only sensible way to consider this subject is to ask oneself two questions, ridding one's mind of dogma. First, does health now get a proper share of the gross national product? If not, what is the most effective way of making up the difference between the percentage it now gets and the percentage which we think it should get? So far, everyone has agreed that health gets nothing like a satisfactory proportion of the G.N.P. Despite the welcome advance, which my right hon. Friend mentioned, to 5 per cent. of the gross national product which has been achieved under this Government, we are still a long way behind other countries. As long ago as 1961–62 Israel was spending 6·3 per cent. of its G.N.P. on health; Canada, 6 per cent.; Chile, 5·6 per cent.; Sweden, 5·4 per cent.; and America, 5·8 per cent., and that was at the beginning of this decade. We therefore have a long way to go to make up the gap that exists between what we are spending and what we should be spending on health.
Because of past neglect of the National Health Service during the 13 years when the Conservatives were in power, we


need particularly heavy capital expenditure to close the gap. And because of the demographic changes in the structure of the population—the increase that will continue to occur in the number of elderly people as a proportion of the total population in the coming decades—we will have to spend more on health simply to maintain existing standards, just as is the case with a number of other social services.
From where is the money to come? At current prices we need £500 million a year or more to reach, say, 6 per cent. of the G.N.P. There are only three sources; taxes, charges or contributions. As I have said, I have no dogmatic objection to charges. They can have a useful, though limited, rôle to play. But the view that charges alone can close the gap of which I have spoken is open to serious objection.
We have not been able to allocate a sufficient proportion of the national income to health because people resist paying higher taxation, and it is sometimes suggested that the same resistance would not be encountered if people had to pay for these services when they used them. In other words, they would be less reluctant to pay when they were able to see a direct connection between the money they were paying and the services they were getting. If that argument were true, it would be attractive and powerful and I would not object to charges on a large scale. In fact, I see no reason to believe that it is true.
To close the gap by charges, and in no other way would be grossly inequitable. This really would mean taxing the sick—people who were ill through no fault of their own. The raising of an extra £500 million solely by charges at the polka of use would be intolerable to any humanitarian. If it were decided to raise this money through charges there would have to be some sort of insurance scheme, with insurance premiums to amortise over his lifetime the charges that a person might have to pay.
I see no reason to believe that people would like to pay increased insurance contributions for their health any more than they like paying increased taxation. There is no evidence that they would and, until compelling evidence of this kind is produced, the idea that one could escape

the dilemma by introducing massive charges is a chimera.
Much the same applies to an increase in National Health contributions. I have nothing against this, if the contribution is earnings related. However, I do not believe that anybody would be happier to pay a higher earnings-related National Health contribution than higher taxation. The idea that one could tap a source of easy money by doing it this way rather than via taxation is a fallacy.
Nor do I accept what my right hon. Friend appeared to be arguing; that if one raised money via National Health contributions it would be easier for my right hon. Friend and his successors, in a future situation of economic stringency, to resist the Treasury's attempts to hold down the growth of health expenditure. We have these recurring panics in the public expenditure exercise when we are in a state of economic stringency, not because the money is raised by taxation, but because it is thought necessary to limit the total resources devoted to this subject. This need would exist whether the money were raised by National Health contributions, taxation or by any other means.
My right hon. Friend asked us to speculate on the idea of employers' contributions. I hope that this aspect will be considered, not in isolation but as part of the whole problem of our taxation system. This should not be done simply by my right hon. Friend. A Select Committee of Parliament is needed to look at the whole question of taxation policy, and the question which faces us today should be considered as part of a general study of the whole problem.
There is, therefore, no escape from the central difficulty, for we cannot possibly hope to achieve the kind of health expenditure we need without a massive increase in taxation. It is not popular for any politician to say this, but it should be said. We have not spent adequately on the social services for the past decade and a half because the people became corrupted during the 13 years of Conservative Administration into accepting the philosophy that private affluence was better than an attack on public squalor.
I agree with Professor Abel Smith that the Labour Party has tried to pretend that


it was possible to evade this difficulty simply by attaining a higher rate of economic growth. That will not solve the problem. We can never escape the problem. If we are to allocate a higher proportion of the national income to social expenditure it cannot be done except by increasing taxation. We must face this and show the people the choice that is before them.
We must ask them if they want a starved, second-rate public sector or if they are prepared to pay for an adequate and decent one. If we campaign properly and present the issues squarely, I am sure that they will prefer an adequate and decent public sector. There is no point in our trying to evade the difficulty or in pretending that it does not exist.
I support the economic strategy of the Government, despite its unpopularity and difficulty, largely because the Chancellor has laid the heaviest burden on private and not on public consumption. In the lifetime of the Labour Government there has been a massive redistribution of resources to the public sector. I accept the limitations on the growth of the public sector which it has been necessary to impose in recent years because that has been the general philosophy and general approach, but I believe we have to face honestly and squarely that as present economic difficulties get less, the graph showing the rate of increase of public expenditure must go up again dramatically in the 'seventies. I hope this will be taken account of by the present Government as they go through the exercise of deciding future priorities.

5.20 p.m.

Mr. Dudley Smith: All Governments, even those as bad as this one, have a tremendous cross to bear in financing essential services. We have had this afternoon reference to the enormous cost of education. One has to throw in the charges involved regarding the police, the roads and the social services. Many of us believe that of these essential priorities health is the most important.
The hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Marquand) has spoken with a good deal of common sense mixed up with a lot of irrelevant Socialist ideology. He posed the question, how should the National Health Service be financed? We are all

agreed that it will cost more as years go by. The hon. Member said that we cannot make up the gap by charges alone. I do not think anyone, certainly not I, pretends that that is possible. If we have some form of charges, however, that will be a distinct help in this situation.
The Secretary of State referred to the services stimulating demand. I am sure that is true. No one wishes to deny services to those in need. One of the essential tenets of the National Health Service is that it should be of help to those in genuine sickness, but no hon. Member would deny that the Service is abused in some sectors. Perhaps some selectivity of charge might help. I make the point as a paid-up hypochondriac. I do not go to my doctor unless I think there is something wrong with me. I do not say this as a member of B.U.P.A.

Dr. John Dunwoody (Falmouth and Carborne): Surely the hon. Member will accept that it does not cost the National Health Service any more if he goes to see his doctor every week?

Mr. Smith: That may be so, but it places great strain on the service—and it does cost the service more. If I get a palliative from the doctor who gives we a nice coloured medicine so that I shall not trouble him again, that costs the service more.
The question is, do we get value for money in the service we have at present? I doubt it very much. I think the standards of the National Health Service have gone down over recent years. We are paying more and more collectively for the service. We have heard on the eve of the twenty-first anniversary of the inauguration of the service that it will cost something like £2,900 million by 1975. Yet as a nation we are paying less towards the service than we should, bearing in mind the contributions we make as a nation to drink, cigarettes and motoring which are all anti-health things, killers in their respective fields. I make the allegation against a Government of any colour that it has a cynical way of subsidising many of the services by revenue from cigarettes which are a lethal substance. I should have thought this indefensible and I make the allegation against any Government.
There is a fundamental need to pay out more for the various essential elements of the National Health Service. It is an absolute disgrace that at present we still have not a proper medical force to staff our hospitals. A number of comments have been made recently on the fact that in our hospitals at least half the junior staff are immigrant doctors. I have no wish to denigrate immigrant doctors. Some are very good and some are not so good, but it is entirely wrong that a sophisticated nation such as ours is not in a position in 1969 to provide almost the whole of the doctoring force from among people born and educated in this country. We have to look seriously at the way in which we remunerate young doctors and give them incentives to remain here rather than emigrating to find better prospects and positions abroad.
We have not got our priorities right concerning the nursing profession. It is amazing that recently we have had a strange argument about whether nurses should have sufficient money for their food and the right resources to do their job. They should be among the higher paid members of the community in public service. Their duties are second to none among sections in the public field. Until we get the nursing services right, allied with the medical profession, we shall not be on the right road to improving the National Health Service. That also goes for the professions ancillary to medicine which are also vital in the conduct of our hospitals and services allied to them.
One of the peripheral ways in which we might save money in the National Health Service would be to hit the pharmaceutical industry even harder than it is hit at present. I say this with the knowledge that the hon. Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt) is probably hoping to make a contribution to this debate. I declare an interest because I am associated with one of the leading pharmaceutical companies in the country.
I am alarmed to read reports in the Press that members of the party opposite in their small back rooms are debating whether or not they should propose to nationalise the drug industry, as it is often popularly known, if they are fortunate enough to win the next election. I should

think this pretty out-of-date stuff. Everyone knows that with a customer like the National Health Service the pharmaceutical industry has to be competitive and keen in prices. It is right for the Government to drive the hardest possible bargain, but to suggest—or to even to hint—at further State participation in the pharmaceutical industry would be damaging an element of the National Health Service, and probably that damage would be irrevocable.
In Russia, where the service has been State-controlled for many years, little if anything has been produced in discoveries by fundamental research. Of all the British industries, the pharmaceutical industry has an excellent record in the number of new medicines which it has brought on to the market as a result of the vast amount of money ploughed back into fundamental research. If we had the dead hand of State enterprise involved in the pharmaceutical industry the nation's health would take a backward step. I therefore suggest to hon. Members opposite that any talk about nationalisation and State participation in the industry is not on. Obviously it will not be on because the Conservatives will win the next election, but to come forward with such a suggestion would lose hon. Members opposite many votes because the people will understand these arguments.
A partial answer to the problem of financing the National Health Service must surely be selective charges; more money from less direct taxation is always important. I should have thought that, although the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State dismissed this rather peremptorily when he said there was no point in charging for hospital beds, he was entirely wrong, because a reasonably well paid member of the community like me should not be able to go into a hospital for four or five weeks entirely free and have all treatment free exactly on the same basis as an old-age pensioner. It would be right for me to make a payment, even if only a small one, towards the cost. A small payment multiplied by many patients would mean a considerable saving.
My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Charles Morrison) talked about the number of letters which arrived by one post for one family. I saw hon. Members opposite smile when my hon.


Friend said this. I have received recently a large number of communications from the West Midlands Gas Board. Every other day two or three letters arrive for me, all dealing with the same subject and all of which could be put into one envelope; but nobody cares, because it is the public which pays. In every nationalised industry and in every public sector service it should be writ large on the walls, "If you look after the pennies, the £s will look after themselves". That old saying is still very true.
After sustaining a serious road accident some years ago I received remedial treatment at an orthopaedic hospital. At the end of that time I was given two walking sticks with which to go out into the world and learn to walk properly again. I said to those concerned, who were courtesy itself, "When I am better and can walk properly again, shall I bring these walking sticks back to you?". The sticks were worth £4 or £5 each. These people said, "Please do not trouble. You keep them. It will be administratively much more inconvenient for us if you bring them back and we have to enter them all up again. Therefore, we always tell people in these circumstances to keep them. Nobody will worry about it". This is the attitude up and down the line, not only in the service, but in many other public sectors. They are small amounts in themselves, but added together they make up a large total.
There has been talk about National Insurance contributions, about taxation, and even about rates. Members of the public regard all forms of deduction from their salaries when they are compulsory—all forms of rates and other deductions—as taxation; the money which goes out of their pockets, under whatever name, is taxation. This should be regarded as a deduction from their earning capacity.
The answer put forward by his side is that we should allow people to have more money in their pockets, that there should be less direct taxation, and that they should at the same time pay more indirect taxation over a wider field. There should be selectivity so that those who can afford to should pay for certain services. I challenged the Secretary of State on this, because there was an implied threat in what he said about the private

sector of the service. I believe that if the Labour Party won the next election, and if the private sector was growing strongly, the right hon. Gentleman would abolish it.
The time has come for us to change our thinking on many aspects of the service. No one will suggest that we should in the long term reduce expenditure. Britain is fairly advanced in the matter of health services. We provide very good resources for the individual, but we still have a long way to go. We should drop the sterile argument as to whether it should be a "free" service, whether we should pay more for it by direct taxation or by indirect taxation, and look to many of the areas which now need to be financed and which will need to be in the years ahead.
We are entering into a new era with transplant surgery and with even further advances in the treatment of mental illness. On the other hand, we are very backward. Only the other day a young, bright, intelligent girl was struck down terribly at the age of 25 with multiple sclerosis. As there was no proper accommodation for her elsewhere, she was put into a home with old people, with people of a different intelligence level from her own. The result is that, although sadly enough this is an irreversible illness, she will deteriorate far more quickly as a result of not having the right sort of environment.
We must get our priorities right within the service. A form of selective charging would in the long term enable us to have a better and more efficient service. We would also bring some spirit of understanding and enthusiasm to those working in the service, many of whom are very dedicated and worried about the way things are going. When we get a change of Government at the next election we shall have the opportunity of doing something about bringing the service up to date and ensuring that it is fitted to fulfil its obligations in the rôle which we plan for it in the last quarter of the 20th century.

5.36 p.m.

Mr. Laurence Pavitt: I am sorry that this is a short debate, because I would dearly love to answer some of the points made by the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Dudley Smith), with 99·9 per


cent. of whose speech I disagree. Perhaps we shall have the opportunity in the future of debating the pharmaceutical industry.
Before I come to the main burden of my speech I want to take up four points which have been made in previous speeches. First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. Maurice Macmillan) on the meat he put into his contribution, and I look forward with interest to reading some of the figures he gave.
Secondly, I entirely reject the allegation of dogma as suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Mr. Marquand). I refer him to one of the least dogmatic of former Members of this House, his father, Hilary Marquand, and advise him to read the speech his father made on 1st May, 1952, which is a better answer than any I can give in the space of time available to me.
Thirdly, I think that the point my right hon. Friend made about the resources for mental health was valid, but his equation was less than profound. In trying to equate the percentage of beds with the percentage of resources it must be borne in mind that acute hospitals, chronic hospitals, mental hospitals, and geriatric hospitals each require different provisions. Therefore, although my right hon. Friend's finding was right, I do not think that his equation necessarily bore out his conclusion.
Fourthly, the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington is entirely wrong in saying that the service is suffering because it is bad. One of the problems of financing the service arises from precisely the opposite. This debate takes place against the background of a success story. The success story has been that because of the N.H.S. people are living longer and that our service has been one of the great successes in the world. In 1945 19,236 people died of tuberculosis. In 1967 only 1,798 died of it. We have more hospitals. We have more doctors. We have more nurses. For every two nurses employed in 1949 we now have three. So I could go on.
In the last four years more resources than at any other time since 1948, in real terms, have gone into health and welfare services. Modern science and modern

treatments inevitably require an ever-increasing amount of finance. Unfortunately, only disaster makes news. Only conflict seems to make a news story. The fact that two million operations were successfully performed last year in National Health Service hospitals does not rate a by-line, whereas only one case of an accident or mistake in the operating theatre causes headlines in every newspaper.
Because of the increasing age to which people live, because of the introduction of new diagnostic machines, because of the increasing use of computers—which will have an important rôle to play in all sections of the service—because of the Increased treatment possibilities that grow up as science puts more weapons into our hands, the nation will have to find more money. The easiest way to find the money is at the time of need. There is no person who, faced with the problem of sickness in his wife, son or daughter, would not be prepared at that time to give the earth to save his family. People, like myself, who are deaf and people who are partially sighted are, of course, willing to pay at the time of need. Even if one only has toothache one is anxious to pay to get rid of it.
There is no question but that that is the easiest way to raise the money. The challenge the House and the Government face is that it is not best to take the easy way out. It destroys the basic principle that my right hon. Friend put forward this afternoon, that it is the healthy people, those who are at work and capable of earning, who should pay, while at a time of sickness or disability, their time of need, people need worry only about getting better and how to manage with pebble glasses, impaired hearing or an amputated leg, and not about whether or not their disability will have a bad effect on their family income and welfare.
This principle has been preserved, and I hope that the House will preserve it. It is unique in the whole world. Various excellent provisions are made in other countries' health services, but this has within it the spark of greatness. It is practical Christianity; it is practical Socialism. We are saying in simple terms that we are members one of another and are prepared, not for our own benefit, to help the man who is unfortunate, the woman in difficulties.
When the National Health Service was introduced this was the fifth freedom we proclaimed at the end of the Second World War—health as a right; fit limbs, eyes and teeth. We were saying, "Although I am all right and do not need to pay, I am prepared to do so for the person who is not. Can I help him?"
It is a difficult concept. My hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield says that he does not mind paying for his glasses. But glasses are not a commodity that the person with good eyes does not have. He is the normal person, and it is the person with bad eyes who has less than he is entitled to. If he wears glasses, they only bring him up to normality, so that he may live fully within the community.
The whole basis of the comprehensive service is part and parcel of the philosophy on which my party came to power in 1945 and again in 1964. If one is to maintain a comprehensive service, it can only be paid for comprehensively. All other ways of doing it can only touch the fringes. The hon Member for Farnham and my right hon. Friend have proved that in their speeches this afternoon. It is the only way, and it is right on health and economic grounds, and to ensure social justice. I shall continue to oppose with all the power I have, as long as I have breath in my body, any imposition of further charges at the time of need.
The hon. Member for Farnham quoted an extract from the Daily Mirror, which was highly contentious because it talked about a free service. There is no such thing as a free service. We are paying for it all the time. The argument is about when we pay, not whether or not it is free.
I entered the House in 1959. I fought my first election—and this is always a fairly thrilling experience for a new Member—largely on the Labour Party's health policy. The policy statement for that election said:
We reaffirm the pledge repeatedly given that in order to restore a free health service we shall abolish all charges, including those on teeth, spectacles, prescriptions and surgical appliances.
I still adhere to that. I cannot concede the point made by my hon. Friend the member for Ashfield, that if a person needs a surgical boot he should be the

only person who has to pay, even in a comprehensively financed scheme, while the person who does not need it and has two good feet has to pay nothing.
The most irrelevant matter in the broad canvas of National Health Service financing is that which has caused so much discussion in recent weeks—the 25 per cent. increase on the existing charges for teeth and spectacles. Of course, deep feelings were involved. I remember the prescription charges debate last year. When I prayed against the Order imposing them a right hon. Member opposite put a point to me which I felt was very valid. After the debate he reminded me of a saying that unless there are some principles whose violation makes life not worth living, life is not worth living. I take the stand not in a puritanical or holier-than-thou attitude. Nevertheless, I hold that unless a party has principles and can keep to them it might as well go out of business. As the hon. Member for Willesden, West I want to remain in business for a long time, and I want my party to remain in Government for a long time. It has been absolute nonsense for the Press to build up this controversy over a sum representing less than one-third of 1 per cent of National Health Service expenditure, as though the whole credibility of the Government rests on whether or not they decide to lay the Order. In terms of the whole financing of the service, this is a small matter.
The Press has not been all that kind. I have read amusing accounts, and my right hon. Friend has no doubt been equally amused, of knives flashing between the Chairman of the Labour Party Health Group and the Secretary of State for Social Services. I am never quite certain which rôles we have been playing. Sometimes it seems that I am David challenging the enormous Government, at other times it seems that he is David against the menace of a large army of back-benchers. What the Press has missed, and always misses, is that debates of this kind between backbenchers and front-henchers in the Labour Party start from an understanding on both sides of the other's point of view. They start not from misunderstanding but from an acceptance of the sincerity of both sides in the debate.
I do not blame the Press boys for doing their job. They have to find a story and do their job according to their lights, even if at times I feel that their lights are rather dim. I sometimes think that they start the day with a prayer:
Give us this day our Labour split
That we can stir and stir a bit.
If peace prevails, how much we hate it.
No strife today? Then let's create it.
In this rather more ironic frame of mind I come to the question of the prescription charges imposed last year as part of the attempt to finance the National Health Service. Professor Abel-Smith said in 1960 that the economic factors in the Health Service never work out in the way people intend, and the charges imposed last year have had precisely that kind of unlooked-for effect. Instead of £25 million, they will yield £10½ million this year and £16½ million in a full year, according to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
But let us consider the side effects. In the Inner London Executive Council there are nine civil servants who checked 19,000 forms at a cost of £8,400 in order to recover £45 from those who cheated. One can go through the whole Health Service. When one tries to be fair, as the Government obviously would, in the institution of charges of this kind, the administrative costs which go not on the drug bill but elsewhere inevitably make a big inroad into the savings that the Exchequer wants to make. Increased staff at acute hospitals in one Metropolitan board area are estimated at about one extra person per hospital to collect the half-crowns. The cost of a machine to put the half-crowns in is £200–£250. How many hospitals have had to install such machines? If after all the kerfuffle we had last year over prescription charges the real yield is more than £5 million to the Exchequer I shall be very much surprised.
I do not think that any of us thought when prescription charges were introduced that the person who would bear the brunt was the middle-aged woman at the time of the change of life, when medication is needed and is helpful, and yet it falls heavily on her. There is only a small number—130,000—of registered blind people. But there is a large number with low visual acuity who have

pebble glasses and need changes for a long time. I am certain that no Government meant to hit the blind person. Who would want to impose a tax on a white stick?
When it comes to the side effects of charges, what happens? The annual report shows that we have more dental surgeons and ophthalmic surgeons than ever before. It is false economy to move away from preventing things happening to treating them in hospital afterwards at great cost. So we will charge for teeth and spectacles, and, as a result, we shall increase the incidence of gingivitis and gum trouble. At a time when there are only five periodontologists in the country, it will put a terrible burden on hospital dental departments.
As my right hon. Friend has explained, with 85½ per cent. going to Exchequer funds from taxation, any charges that we make represent a second payment. We all pay regularly, but there is a second tax charged at the time of use only to those who are sick, to those who need glasses and to those who need dentures. There is a 100 per cent. exemption for the healthy. This is, therefore, an unfair second form of taxation.
In my view, all charges are irrelevant. If they are maximised, they can only be very marginal. My main contention is that it prevents our getting down to the real problem. The only way that the Health Service can be financed is by people being willing to pay and knowing what they are paying for.
Each employed person now pays £37 a year. A man with a wife and two children pays more on two items for his car, his tax and insurance, than for the health of his family for 12 months.
Can the nation afford the Health Service? Last year we spent £1,690 million on beer, wines and spirits, £1,578 million on cigars, cigarettes and tobacco, and £2,230 million on betting. Of course the nation can afford the Health Service if it wants to afford it. But the only way we shall want to afford it is if we know what it is about.
This mood which has been brought about—and I am just as responsible as others in this House—that it is a free Health Service, which the benevolent Government, whether Tory or Labour, give us, is nonsense. It is our service. We built it and we pay for it. If we


know what we are paying for, whatever method my right hon. Friend finally devises, the cash will be forthcoming. What kind of a nation are we if we cannot look after the sick and disabled within our midst?
We must be able to identify the ordinary person with his Health Service. He must be able to participate in it. Charges are an illusion. The possibilities of contributions from taxation will be fully explored in future debates. I do not like a weekly poll tax, but if there is an identifiable and fair system whereby contributions are clearly designated for the Health Service according to ability to pay, provided people pay while they are in normal health, I see no justification for accepting that sick people should pay if we are to have a mixed approach to finding the finance for the National Health Service.
The whole House has agreed that we must talk in terms of six per cent. gross national product. It is to the credit of the Government that they have gone up from 4 per cent. to just over 5 per cent. in the last four years—the biggest rise since the inception of the service.
On financing, the gap between myself and hon. Gentlemen opposite is almost as wide as the Grand Canyon. I refer to the speech of the hon. Member for Farnham at Headington on 15th March, 1968, when he made clear the policy of the Conservative Party, He said:
This review should certainly consider the possibility of getting the service or at least parts of it on an insurance basis up to a reasonable level of health provision which could be laid down by Parliament. Where services beyond this level were needed there could be charges scaled according to ability to pay. Old age pensioners would, of course, not have to pay and neither would they be expected to insure … With sizeable proportion of the cost of the service coming from a source other than taxation, it would really he possible to consider ways and means of getting effective decentralisation.
This is the old philosophy of a minimum provision and a safety net. This is the philosophy of the Opposition, and I cannot subscribe to it because it inevitably leads to a first-class service for those who are wealthy and a second-class service for the man in the street.
This policy was confirmed by the Leader of the Opposition in his teleview last week with Robin Day when, accord-

ing to The Guardian report, on the social services the right hon. Gentleman said that he wanted to see people able to provide for themselves more and they want to do it. Along those lines is the complete negation of all the policies which all right hon. and hon. Members on this side have stood for.
We need to rethink about the allocation of the resources inside the National Health Service. We are inclined to regard the hospital as the nearest thing to a sacred cow. We have what I should call an Emergency Ward 10 syndrome. The whole health problem seems to be concentrated on the hospital, and when we see this soap opera, it is concentrated mainly on doctors and nurses, and the patient comes last.
We are in great danger in planning forward for the Health Service of making the mistake of planning on institutional rather than domiciliary care. We should have made the same mistake in 1945, at a time when T.B. sanatoria were very much needed, if we had continued to pour money into building T.B. sanatoria when, a few years later, they were no longer required for that purpose.
That other priority in allocation of resources should be the provision of personnel rather than bricks and mortar. Bad as some old hospitals are, it is more important to have more money for nurses, radiographers, physiotherapists, and medical staff to cope, even if conditions are not right.
The two major shifts, first, from institutional to domiciliary care and, second, towards prevention, mean that more resources must be given to general practice. At present we give about 7 per cent. to general practice compared with 12 per cent. to manufacturers of pharmaceuticals. I should like to reverse these figures and have the proportions the other way round.
I pay tribute to the way that drugs have minimised the need for hospitalisation. But at present we are paying through the nose. The Government are paying more than they need for necessary drugs for Health Service use.
The story of company A, which has gone through Question Time in this House, is a case in point. From 1961 to April, 1969, negotiations went on, and some of the reductions finally agreed


still have not taken place. Yesterday at Question Time one of the Under-Secretaries mentioned the broad spectrum of the antibiotic Ampicillin. The profits of the company producing it went up from £20,559,000 last year to £25,095,000 this year. That is a return of 36·2 per cent. on the equity capital this year compared with 31·1 per cent. last year. That destroys the case made by the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Dudley Smith). He seemed to argue that there is nothing one can do in the pharmaceutical sector to save money, and preferred charges for spectacles through the National Health Service.
I conclude with this comment. In correspondence with me last year my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said:
As you will know, the decision to reintroduce prescription charges was both difficult and distasteful to us all. It was taken, along with other disagreeable decisions, from sheer economic necessity.
My right hon. Friend later said:
It would be wrong for you to assume that these charges, reluctantly introduced to meet a serious economic situation, carried the implication of a permanent change in the Government's policy or of its approach to Health Service financing.
I urge the Government to restore the basic principle of this party on health matters. This has been a trump card at every General Election right the way through my political history. If we debase it and make a pale blue copy of something that the Opposition would like for their policy on financing the Health Service, I believe that we shall throw away one of our biggest opportunities of winning the next General Election and, most important, of getting back the full support of those faithful and loyal supporters of the Labour Party who believe this kind of principle is the thing for which they have given a lifetime's service.

6.0 p.m.

Mr. Tim Fortescue: The whole House admires the idealism and persistence of the hon. Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt), even though we may not agree with any of his views on Health Service charges or the profitability of private enterprise

companies. We have heard that speech before, and I hope that we will hear it many times again, but not perhaps in future immediately before one of mine. But he has not much to worry about, because his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has made clear the direction in which his thoughts are moving. Whatever he may do about the threatened 25 per cent. increase in charges on spectacles and dentures, which we will hear about very soon, it is clear that he is thinking in terms of raising the extra money needed for the Health Service by extra taxation.
On Second Reading of the National Insurance (No. 2) Bill, we argued about what were taxes and what were contributions. I think that the right hon. Gentleman said that a tax was something paid to the general pool from which general services were drawn, and that a contribution was paid for a specific purpose. He now says that he is thinking in terms of raising additional money by increasing graduated contributions both from employees and employers which would, in his view, be not an increase in taxation but an increase in contributions. But it is clear that increased graduated contributions applied universally in return for the enormous bounty of the National Health Service, spread over such a wide field, are so close to additional taxation as to be almost indistinguishable. The message which the House will carry from this debate must be that the party opposite, for the financing of the service, will be looking for additional taxation.
I have experienced many squeezes in my life, some more attractive than others, but none perhaps so unattractive as the one which I am now suffering, in common with the rest of the country. When one works for a commercial organisation, as I have done, they are called not "squeezes", but "efficiency audits" or "management consultant investigations", but they are exactly the same. Their purpose is to find money where no more income is available, which means through savings.
I have learned, through these bitter experiences that the only way to find money by this means is not to reduce everything by 5 per cent., which looks like the easiest way always but is about the most foolish, because one reduces the


costs of efficient and inefficient departments alike; it is not by firing the office boy in one department and perhaps the junior clerk in another. It is by examining the functions of the organisation and deciding which could be dispensed with. This is the way that real economies are made. Any other way is simply playing with the problem.
In turning my thoughts to the finances of the National Health Service, I tried to adopt this technique, and to think whether any part of the Service could be hived off so that it would no longer be a burden on the consumer or contributor. My thoughts turned to dentistry. The original National Health Service Act of 1947 did not provide necessarily that the Minister of Health should provide all services. The Act says that he shall provide or "see that there are provided" services in such fields as dentistry, medicine and pharmacy. The original advice of the British Dental Association to the dentists was that they should not be part of the National Health Service. That advice, of course, has never been rescinded. Any general practitioner in dentistry can at any time say that he will no longer participate in the National Health Service but will become a private dentist. This can be done without notice, and more and more dentists are doing it.
The truth is that all is not well in the world of dentistry. The general practitioners are very disillusioned with their lot under the National Health Service, and a breakaway group of some strength has been formed 'to see what can be done to change the conditions of service. Their chief complaint is the complication and and ineffectiveness of the system of remuneration.
Rather than rely on my memory, since this is a very complex matter, I should like to quote from an article in a publication suitably called The Probe, the journal of the General Dental Practitioners Association, for May, 1969, which is as up to date as it can be, written by a practising dentist. He writes:
The present system of remuneration provides that an independent Review Body fixes a target net income for dentists in the General Dental Services. Then a Dental Rates Study Group, composed of equal numbers of dentists' and Department of Health representatives, with an independent chairman, adds an estimated amount to cover the average expenses, multiplies by the number of principal dentists, thus

not counting the assistant dentists, and arrives at the gross fees which should be earned by all the dentists, assistant dentists and hygienists in the General Dental Services.
Taking the treatments carried out the previous year, and adding an estimated 3 per cent. for increase in output, the scale of fees is computed. This fee structure based as it is on a series of averages, without a common baseline, results in about 30 per cent. of dentists achieving, or exceeding, the target income. Even for equal hours of work, and equal turnover, the net income will vary, depending on the variation of expenses and type of practice from one part of the country to the other.
The whole essence of this highly complex system is that dentists have a target net income set for them by the National Health Service.
This is my first point of attack. Why should any man, let alone a professional man with a long and difficult training, have a target net income set for him by anyone? The labourer is still worthy of his hire, and it is absurd that the target net income should be established for dentists by an outside body with political implications—the findings of this Review Body are subject to approval by the Minister—rather than each man being allowed to earn what he can through the scale of fees prescribed by the Ministry.
The author of this article also writes:
Payment of dentists in the Genral Dental Services is unique, and while it may suit the civil servants and the politicians, as it ensures a dental service at the cheapest possible cost, it has resulted, over the years, in discouraging the conscientious dentist. It has discouraged preventive dentistry, encouraged the provision of fillings which will require subsequent renewal, for which a fee is payable, instead of more permanent restorations such as crowns, and encouraged more treatment to be carried out than would appear necessary.
This is a practising dentist's view of the present position.
The reason for this unsatisfactory position is that in order to earn the target net income general practitioners in dentistry must work as fast as they can and must do as many dental operations in the day as possible. This discourages them from doing operations which take any length of time—the more skilful and comprehensive dentistry for which they are trained—and encourages them to do the fillings and simple things which they can do quickly and then get another patient into the chair.
Another result is that dentists' incomes decrease progressively as they get older. In answer to a Parliamentary Question


the other day, I was told that the average income of dentists between 25 and 35 is about £4,000, whereas the average for those between 55 and 65 is about £1,500. The reason is that the older a dentist gets and the slower he works the less he can earn.
I wrote to the Ministry of Health about this. The noble Lady, Baroness Serota, told me in a long and courteous letter that:
The Secretary of State has now accepted in principle a request that a scheme of seniority payments for older dentists should be introduced.
This is good news. The letter went on:
The details of the scheme have yet to be worked out but the broad intention is to provide practitioners between the ages of 55 and 70 … with a special payment of up to £200 per year in recognition of their lesser earning power.
This entirely confirms my point that a system of remuneration in which the older professional man earns less than the young professional man is, by definition, wrong.
I can assure the Under-Secretary that the present system of remuneration is causing much dissatisfaction in the dental service. What can be done about it? It occurred to me that dentistry is a sphere of medicine fundamentally different from the other spheres. It has three fundamental differences. The first is that people do not die of dental problems. Do I see the Under-Secretary shaking his head? I have the figures here.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Department of Health and Social Security (Mr. Julian Snow): I was not shaking my head. I was cogitating.

Mr. Fortescue: I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon. He looked as if he was shaking his head. If that was cogitation I should have recognised it. In 1968, 12 people died from what could have been identified as dental conditions. Although it is a tragic number, it is not an important number. Because people do not die from these conditions, and because they do not become chronically sick—they can always have their teeth out and start again—the problem of the safety net, which, whatever the hon. Member for Willesden, West says, is always inherent in National Health Service problems,

through providing for the chronic sick, the mentally sick, people who will be ill for a long time, does not exist.
The second fundamental difference between dentistry and the other spheres of medicine is that dentistry is, or should be, essentially prophylactic in its nature. If dentistry is done regularly there should seldom be any need for therapeutic dentistry. We can keep dentally fit by regular treatment. Thirdly, all children in this country, thanks to the National Health Service, now leave school dentally fit. There is no reason why they should not do so. They have regular free treatment during their school days and they set out in life with a high standard of dental fitness.
These three differences between dentistry and the rest of the Health Service seem to indicate that it would be possible to have a different attitude towards dentistry within the National Health Service from the attitude towards other spheres of medicine. I suggest tentatively that if it were possible for the free dentistry to be retained for children and older people, then for the working population we could introduce a system whereby dentistry would be free only to the patient if he regularly visited his dentist, that is the prophylactic side of dentistry would continue to be free. If people, having started with a dentally fit mouth, neglected to maintain it, and did not go to the dentist for a long time, they would automatically have to pay when next they went. This would in fact apply a degree of marketing technique to dental services.
This would be a great incentive to all of us who hate going to the dentist. I am sure that every hon. Member hates going to the dentist. We would have this incentive to keep our mouths fit, and thus to improve the dental health of the nation. It would be a saving for the Health Service because the dental state of the nation would be better and because dentists would be given more time to concentrate on the skilful side of dentistry which at the moment is beginning to be neglected. I am sorry to say that, but I firmly believe it to be true.
The present cost of the dental services to the country is in the nature of £100 million a year. Of that patients pay about £30 million with present charges,


and about £30 million represents the cost of school dentistry and dental hospitals. We are talking, therefore, about £40 million available for saving if people could gradually be weaned towards paying for dentistry when they have begun to neglect their mouths. This would be a perfectly proper sphere of investigation for the right hon. Gentleman and I believe it would be one way at least in which the cost of the National Health Service might be reduced.

6.15 p.m.

Dr. John Dunwoody: It is useful that we should have a debate on this subject now because there is a great deal of anxiety within the Health Service about the whole problem of financing. Our Health Service has some outstanding achievements to its credit over the last 21 years. Nevertheless, we face very serious problems. We face the problems of excessively long waiting lists for surgical treatment; we have a shortage of doctors in all parts of the service; we have overcrowded waiting rooms; and we have a nursing profession disgruntled as perhaps never before.
In the last year or so we have seen the re-introduction of prescription charges and the intention of the Government to increase existing charges for glasses and dental treatment. It is useful that we should be discussing the question of finance. I want to put forward some constructive suggestions because some of the speeches this afternoon have been a little less than constructive.
First, we must accept the cause of the problem—the inevitability of the increasing demand for finance in the National Health Service. This is inevitable, inexorable, for two reasons. First, we are an ageing community. As the years go by, a higher proportion of our community is of retirement age, and expectation of life increases. This means, without any change in the standard of service, without any change in treatment offered, that we shall have to provide more resources to provide adequate care for the community.
At the same time we see, inevitably, inexorably, advances taking place in medicine. New treatments become available in surgery, new drugs become available, all giving great advantages to the community, nearly all costing more than

the treatments which they replace. The new drugs are nearly always more expensive than the older ones; surgical treatment is always more expensive than non-surgical treatment. New operative techniques make great demands on skilled medical workers.
The result of these two factors is that the requirements of the Health Service in terms of finance will go up year by year. If we are to see the sort of advances that some of us want to see, the rate of increase must be great. At the moment the great bulk of the revenue which finances the Health Service comes from taxation—85 per cent. or so. About 10 per cent. comes from the weekly stamp, and only 5 per cent. or so from charges from the patient. The great bulk of this money goes to the hospital service.
We sometimes forget that the hospital service costs twice as much as the whole of the rest of the Health Service. Two-thirds of our money goes to running the hospital service. A mere 9 per cent. runs the general practitioner service, 12 per cent. is required for the drugs which G.Ps prescribe, and the remainder is required for dental, ophthalmic and other ancillary services.
At the moment we have these three means of financing the service: taxation, weekly stamp and charges. Inevitably taxation must remain the major means of financing the service for the indefinite future. Some thought should be given to the rôle played by the contributions from the weekly stamp, particularly as we are moving towards a wage-related stamp for pension and National Insurance benefits.
The case for a wage-related National Health contribution on the weekly stamp is very strong. I was also attracted by the suggestion of my right hon. Friend that we should be considering the proportion of this that the employer should pay. The reason why I am attracted to this is that there is, as he says, a certain illogicality about a wage-related contribution from the employee for a benefit that is static, because health benefits will remain constant, irrespective of income. But the benefit which the employer derives from the National Health Service is directly related to the wage or salary which he pays his employee. The case for a significantly increased contribution from the employer is strong.
I turn to the question of charges. I do not have a doctrinaire opposition to all Health Service charges, as one of my hon. Friends implied. I accept the inevitability of some—for example, amenity beds. I am opposed to prescription charges, and I am very anxious about the proposed increase in dental and ophthalmic charges. My opposition to charges basically is that they fall most heavily on those sections of the community least able to pay them at the time that they are least able to pay them. But I agree that we should not look at this matter in a completely doctrinaire way.
I reject out of hand, however, the suggestion of some hon. Members opposite that we should think in terms of inpatient hospital charges. It is ludicrous. We are talking about a service which costs nearly £2,000 million. Even if a charge on in-patients of, say, £4 a week were politically and socially acceptable—which I do not believe it would be to the people of this country—with the inevitable exceptions, like geriatric and psychiatric patients, children, long-term cases, and the chronically ill, the amount which would be raised in a full year would be very small indeed.
How can we save money in the Health Service? Are there means by which we can economise? Can we get better value for money? There are some things which we can do. Somebody has already had a knock at the administrative side of the service. It is always popular to talk about administrative waste. I am not sure that there is enormous scope for savings here. Perhaps some time and motion study work could be done in the administrative field. I look forward to the administrative reorganisation which my right hon. Friend will be proposing in the fairly near future.
I believe that savings are possible in the hospital service. The cost of an acute hospital bed is about £50 a week, or £7 a day. That is 6s. an hour, which is more than some people in this country earn. I question whether all patients in hospital need be there, particularly in two fields. First, many surgical cases remain in hospital longer after the operation than they need do. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State mentioned advances in the treatment of varicose

veins. I suggest that similar advances could be made in the treatment of other surgical conditions. The possibility of much earlier discharge after routine surgery should be much more seriously considered.
Other people who should not be in hospital are those admitted for primarily social reasons. The investment of money in the community health services, which means improving the general practitioner service, the district nursing service and health visitor services, would give a far better return, and, incidentally, would provide far better treatment for the patient. These patients should not be in hospital away from their homes, families and friends, but very often they are costing £50 a week to maintain merely because there is not, for example, an adequate home help service in the area.
I turn to the drugs bill. I give the Government credit for the real advances which they have made in restricting the excesses of some of the more irresponsible elements in the pharmaceutical industry. Nevertheless, a lot goes on which should not go on. There are still cascades of advertisements pouring through the front doors of general practitioners every morning. There is a wastage of drugs in many ways. I ask my right hon. Friend seriously to consider whether it is possible to devise a scheme by which, when drugs are prescribed by a doctor, if the doctor does not order a particular company's product the pharmacist should supply the cheapest equivalent. This would not be a restriction on the freedom of the doctor to prescribe what he wanted to prescribe. It would save a significant sum of money over a year.
We should do more to make the community conscious of the cost of the service. Is there any reason why pharmacists should not put the cost of tablets or medicine on the bottle? Many patients do not realise that the tablets which they receive cost perhaps £2, £3, or £4. It would be in the interests of the service if the community had a much clearer idea of how much these products cost.
In the final analysis, more resources must be made available to the National Health Service. This can be done, and in my view should be done, only at the expense of other demands. There is no alternative. It must be done at the


expense of Government and personal expenditure in other fields. This is the choice before us, and I hope that we take the right decision.

6.26 p.m.

Mr. Marcus Kimball: The hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Dr. John Dunwoody) produced only chicken feed in the way of savings in the National Health Service. The problem is to get a substantial flow of funds into the service. I am convinced that the only way to solve it is by getting a large flow of money to the hospital service and the general medical profession from private sources. Many of us feel that we do not get value for money and we are terrified by the appetite for new money in the hospital service, not only for new surgical techniques and medical advances, but to repair and modernise the many dreadfully shabby buildings in the hospital service.
However, I pay tribute to the way some Government money has been spent in my constituency. Most people who have to use the Health Service only have to see their general practitioner. Most of us hope that we never have to go further into the service than that. The Government have made grants available to general practitioners in Gainsborough to modernise their consulting rooms and have a proper appointments system. For people who do not often have to use the service, this is a spectacular, sensible and useful development.
I am surprised that, when considering fresh sources of money, nobody has remembered that my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, West (Mr. kin Macleod), when asked what he would propose in his budget, said two years ago in the Financial Times that he would start a national lottery to pay for capital improvements in the Health Service. This point seems to have been forgotten. I do not think that it is part of the Conservative Party's policy at the moment. I urge my Front Bench to say clearly that we in the Conservative Party feel that the only way in which we can bring about a substantial improvement in the Health Service is by the injection of private money and that the only way to encourage it is through organisations like B.U.P.A.
My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Charles Morrison) men-

tioned the 1,250,000 people who subscribe to B.U.P.A. and the eight new nursing homes and hospitals, practically the only ones being built anywhere, which are springing up in the country. I hope that our policy will be to make it clear to people that if they subscribe to B.U.P.A. they will get a substantial tax concession on their subscription. That would encourage them, and it fits in with Conservative Party policy, which is to encourage people who can pay to help themselves. If we do not do this, there will be a continual deterioration in the standard of the Health Service, which none of us wants. This is the only way which I can see of making a practical improvement in the service.

6.29 p.m.

Mr. Paul Dean: There has been a common theme in all the speeches in the debate, and that is the built-in growth factors which inevitably exist in the National Health Service, as in many other public services, but perhaps more in this service than even in pensions or housing. The Secretary of State, in his interesting and thoughtful speech, referred to the enormous expansion which has taken place. He gave the figures—a cost of £450 million in the first year of the service, rising to about £1,900 million today, and continuing to rise.
The fact that there has been a substantial rise in expenditure, in both absolute and real terms, although substantial needs still require to be met, shows the dilemma which any Minister inevitably faces. In spite of this expansion there are still problems. We heard the report on the Ely Hospital only a few weeks ago, when the right hon. Gentleman was able to offer nothing more than a reallocation of resources within the service so that mental health service will have slightly more. This, inevitably—as I am sure the Minister will agree—is a policy of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Then there is the enormous growth in the demand for services for old people, which was brought out clearly in a report last year by the Office of Health Economics, which showed that there was a gap between the services required by old people and those which they were getting. The Seebohm Report referred to the great untapped demand for personal services for the old, the mentally


sick, children, mothers, and so on. Then there is the disturbing feature of the brain drain of doctors, which began to show in the decrease in the number of practitioners in both 1966 and 1967. This is a disturbing trend in a service which depends greatly on medical manpower. These are a few examples. The Todd Report target of 1,100 extra doctors trained each year represents another demand for additional resources which must be met.
It is obvious that the problem will become worse rather than better, because these built-in growth factors are multiplying all the time and the number of old people is growing. The sort of conditions that people were prepared to accept in hospital ten years ago are not accepted today, because standards are rising. Most important of all, perhaps, are the advances in medical science which we see most acutely in spare part surgery. An enormous cost is involved, not only in terms of money but in skilled manpower.
In the context of advances in medical science it is unfortunate that at the moment some quarters should be attacking the pharmaceutical industry. That industry has done a good deal in terms of the great advances in medical science which have taken place in the last 20 years. At a time when the industry is negotiating a new voluntary price regulation agreement with the Minister it is unfortunate—and I suspect it is rather embarrassing for the Minister—that these attacks should be made on the industry.
In admitting these growth factors the right hon. Gentleman attempted to answer the questions put to him by my right hon. Friend the Member for Farnham (Mr. Maurice Macmillan) as to the way in which we can obtain additional resources to meet the ever-growing demand. Interesting as they were, the Minister's answers were rather unconvincing. They left us with little prospect of meeting the cost of the additional resources required if our health services are to continue to progress and not gradually to decline.
The Minister spoke first about the possibility of increasing taxation. He said that the greater part of the service must inevitably continue to be paid for through taxation. In our present position, when over 80 per cent. of the cost is met

through either central or local taxation, dependence upon the taxpayer is so great that the service is bound to be subjected to the pressures of economic crises, as the Minister admitted. The taxpayer is now on strike. The fact that in the last two Budgets the Chancellor was not prepared to increase direct taxation to help meet the expansion of the service shows that very clearly. It is unreal, therefore, to expect that we can obtain substantially more money for the service from taxation. It is a blind alley.
The Minister also referred to the possibility of making direct charges. He said—and we would agree with him—that the amount of money that can be raised in this way is limited. If we were thinking of charges divorced from insurance we would entirely accept his proposition that the amount of money is limited. In our view, there is a strong case for a prescription charge and for the other charges which apply at present, but these are not the fundamental aspects of the service. That is the difference.
In relation to a service which now requires £1,900 million a year, the tremendous row that is going on over the £3½ million in increased charges for teeth and spactacles would be laughable if it were not taken so seriously by the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends. In spite of its being a comparatively minor financial matter, I hope that the Under-Secretary will answer the questions put both by my hon. Friends and by hon. Members opposite as to when we shall see these famous regulations and when we shall be able to debate them. Whatever may happen, when the regulations have been passed—if they are passed—it will be nothing more than a pyrrhic victory for the right hon. Gentleman. It will do little to deal with the central problem that we are now discussing.
The third possibility which the Minister examined related to the private sector. It was referred to in a number of speeches, especially by my hon. Friends. The Minister referred to the fact that subscriptions to the private sector now run at about £14 million a year. He did not say, however, that this figure is increasing substantially. It may appear small—it is small, in relation to the National Health Service—but it is growing at a rate of about 15 per cent. a year, and has been doing so for many years.


The subscription income of the various provident associations, of which B.U.P.A. is the largest, was about £3½ million ten years ago. There has been a substantial increase in this period. There are also the hospital saving funds—the sixpence-a-week schemes—which bring in substantial additional resources, mostly from wage earners, which supplement the services, and the finance available through the National Health Service.
Additional resources are brought in through the private sector. For example, whereas 30 beds were provided by B.U.P.A. in 1959 that organisation now supplies well over 460, and the number is increasing each year. Many nurses who otherwise would not be available are brought in from abroad by these organisations. Although this movement may now appear to be small, we must remember that it is growing at an encouraging rate considering the fact that the people who contribute to it have to pay twice or three times.
The right hon. Gentleman suggested that if we encouraged this sector to develop in the same way as we encourage home ownership in the housing sector, and occupational pension schemes in social services, the National Health Service would become a second-class service. I do not accept this argument. I do not believe that is what would happen. It is much more likely that additional resources would help to relieve pressure on the National Health Service, and that the private sector would act as a pace setter and yardstick against which the National Health Service can be judged.
The right hon. Gentleman's other argument was that leading consultants would treat only private patients, and their services would not be available to the National Health Service. Were that to happen, I would agree with the right hon. Gentleman that this would be an unfortunate situation, but I do not believe that it will happen. If the right hon. Gentleman will talk to leading consultants in this country, as I have, he will find that they will almost invariably tell him that the success of their private practice depends upon the success of their National Health Service practice. The better the work they do in the National Health Service, the greater their reputation and the more private patients they have. I do not accept the arguments of the right hon.

Gentleman, and in rejecting this possibility he is rejecting one of the most hopeful ways in which additional resources can be made available for health as a whole.
The last alternative mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman, and by the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Dr. John Dunwoody) and others, was the possibility of additional money being available through National Health Service contributions on a graduated basis. The right hon. Gentleman said that he was considering this possibility both for the employee and for the employer. I asked the right hon. Gentleman whether this could be done in the short term or the long term. He said in the long term, and I understood him to mean possibly in 1972 when the graduated contribution is introduced.
Is it realistic to expect employees to pay a substantially increased National Health Service contribution at precisely the time when the right hon. Gentleman is expecting them to pay an increased contribution for cash benefits? I am doubtful whether that sort of time scale is on.
It is exactly the same for the employer. The employer's costs will be considerably increased in 1972 under the right hon. Gentleman's new scheme. To expect them, in addition to that increase, to accept another burden for the National Health Service is totally unrealistic. It would be the consumer who would pay. That increase in contributions would inevitably be added to prices, and therefore passed on to the consumer, including the poorer sections of the community.
It is not realistic in the foreseeable future to expect that substantial additional money can be raised through the National Health Service contribution, although it may be possible in the long term to raise more money through a system of insurance, but not as soon as the right hon. Gentleman envisaged.
The right hon. Gentleman is still faced with the acute dilemma put to him by my hon. Friend in opening the debate. He has not found the way in which this additional money can be raised. So we are left with the possibility of the Health Service running down. The right hon. Gentleman is in a difficult position, as he is on pensions. He is long on promises but short on money to fulfil those


promises. He has put forward some ambitious ideas for reform, as he has done on pensions, but in practice, unless he can find additional and acceptable ways to bring in more money, it will be impossible for him to carry out these promises, in health, as in pensions.

6.45 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Department of Health and Social Security (Mr. Julian Snow): There seems to be fairly general agreement on both sides of the House that the existing pressures which we recognise on the National Health Service in terms of expenditure are likely to increase. There may be greater argument, if not dispute, on how the resources, if they are obtained should be deployed.
The record of this Government is not all that bad. Expenditure in real terms has increased 30 per cent. since we took office in 1964. The share of the gross national product for the National Health Service is up to about 5 per cent., compared with the 4 per cent. when we took office.
Comparisons with other countries can be very misleading. It is difficult to compare like with like and to assess the value secured for expenditure in one country compared with another. Sufficient to say that the National Health Service at present, with all its shortcomings—and there are many—is admired throughout the world.
In listening to some of the speeches this afternoon I am reminded that I am the only member of the original Committee which examined the 1946 Act when it was piloted through the House by Mr. Aneurin Bevan, and I take great pleasure in addressing the House today on this subject.
The hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. Maurice Macmillan) made a critical speech—that is his job—which was a bit short on constructive proposals for achieving the increase in income which we all know to be necessary. He made one or two suggestions but, by and large, they were chicken feed. The great argument is how to achieve the increase in income which will inevitably be necessary.
One suggestion which struck a discordant note with me was that gifts should

be made to hospitals with, possibly, attached tax relief. This is an unattractive idea for various reasons, one reason being that it might lead hospitals into the habit of soliciting money, thus making poor patients feel that they were at a disadvantage. A second reason is that there might be a big discrepancy in the provision of gifts as between acute hospitals and subnormality hospitals.
I do not want to make too much of that point, because I want to return to the principle which the hon. Member enunciated, and which was taken up by my right hon. Friend. The major question is whether the increase should be achieved by some form of insurance contribution or by charges. On charges I stand four-square by my right hon. Friend. The question for people who think as our party thinks is whether we can maintain the situation that when a person is in health he should pay and when he is sick he should be free of financial anxiety. That is the basic principle by which we stand.

Mr. Maurice Macmillan: I do not see how being able to give money to hospital tax-free affects the patient.

Mr. Snow: Some patients may be so poor that they have no money to give. Surely the provision of money is after the event, and that is not a very attractive idea.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Mr. Marquand) in a very thoughtful speech rightly said that expenditure by a Health Department could not be isolated from expenditure by other spending Departments. He said that it boiled down to the question of relative efficiency; the share of the national product for health must be determined by defining the public interest and the interest of the patient. Our discussions in Parliament on health matters often become so rarified that we forget that in the end it is the patient who really matters.
There is no escape from this question of a matching increase in taxation if we are to meet the financial demands of increased complications of techniques and the improvements which we all desire in our hospitals. People say "Look at America", or "Look at Sweden", and their problems are very different. Although there may be many examples


in both countries of wonderful hospitals with services far in excess of the sort of provision we can make in this country from the technical or capital investment point of view, I say that in this country in the peripheral, rather out-of-the-way, hospital there is nothing of which we need to be ashamed compared with other countries.
The hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Dudley Smith), who has not stayed for an answer, referred to immigrant doctors. Has he ever thought of this fact? I put it to the House, in the hon. Member's absence, so that it can be considered. The United States is just as short of doctors in its own way as we are here. It is dependent on immigrants as we are dependent upon them. The lesson to be learnt is that, in the end, it is the increased provision of professional people in the practice of medicine which is the answer, not necessarily the raising of hares about immigrants.
The hon. Member also referred to the hard-hit pharmaceutical industry, a point that I thought was adequately answered by my hon. Friend the Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt). I answered yesterday in the House some Questions about a certain drug. There is a continuing process of scrutiny of the prices charged to the National Health Service. We are always trying to improve on the system of securing the right price, and we are at present in negotiation with the industry to try to reach a satisfactory agreement. We take into account not only the very heavy expenditure on research but the fact that we are the biggest single purchaser of drugs in the world, and we feel that we ought to achieve a better understanding in relation to price than the rest of the world.
The right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) asked about the ratio of income derived from rates and taxation. The answer is that 80 per cent. of the cost of the service is derived from taxation and 5 per cent. from rates. My hon. Friend the Member for Willesden, West went into the matter of the underlying feeling on this side of the House about prescription charges and other health charges.
Incidentally, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) was in error in talking about charges on surgical items. No such charges are

made. He rehearsed his feelings, which reflect the feelings of most people about charges under the National Health Service for various items that we have always undertaken would be free of charge. This flows, if one likes, from the doctrinal feeling on our side of the House that the service was initiated as a free service and should be maintained as such.
I accept the criticism that was made by my right hon. Friend, but what he did not rehearse equally were the methods by which he thought we should alter our sources and our ability to secure the necessary finances. This is not necessarily a criticism of him since it was endemic in most speeches this afternoon. The major question about contributions versus charges—a generalised tax versus an individual tax—we must to some extent leave for opinion to develop and for new methods and ideas to ferment.
I was rather concerned about the speech made by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Fortescue) about the disincentive contained in the formula to provide an economical dental service. I thought that he was on the wrong tack when he suggested that a bonus should be payable for those people who keep their mouths in fit order. This is an ordinary matter of prophylaxis and good sense, and there is much to be done in dental education. There are many conditions of mouth and teeth which have to be remedied by therapeutic treatment.
The formula which was criticised by the hon. Gentleman was a formula worked out by an independent advisory committee presided over by an independent chairman. The dentists are represented upon that committee. I should have thought that had they been able to achieve a more simple formula we should have heard about it before now. But we live in hopes. It is a complicated formula.
The hon. Gentleman referred to time-consuming work and also to the problem of the ageing dentist. He mentioned that an increment had now been agreed. There is a review body for the medical and dental services to which the professions can make adequate representations. I will draw the attention of that body and my Department to the matter of time-consuming work. This is not a new problem but will certainly repay further investigation.
The hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Charles Morrison) referred to failures in administration, although the example he gave was not a very good one. There is a continuous review of organisation and methods not only within my Department but on the part of hospital authorities and executive councils. We issue notes suggesting improvements which can be made. It is not evidence of general inefficiency to give as an example the sending of six letters to one family. Indeed, if one considers the methods of private enterprise companies, the hon. Gentleman, like myself, may sometimes have received three or four envelopes on the same subject addressed to individuals in the same family. It is a matter of working out the best economical system.
I have tried to refer to the main points which have arisen in the debate. I am led to the conclusion that underlying most of the Opposition speeches this afternoon is a feeling that there should be a place for a system such as B.U.P.A. as an alternative for the higher income group in this country to the National Health Service. I find this unattractive and unacceptable. The fact is that not only do they skim off the professional and medical staff, but they skim off other resources. The drain of nursing

and ancillary staff to them must be to the detriment of the National Health Service.
It all comes down to a question of priorities and whether a man in a high income group is the best judge of his particular condition or whether it should be in the hands of a doctor who can take a detached attitude on the matter. It is not unknown for establishments run by these provident organisation to refer cases which become complicated or serious to the National Health Service because such establishments have not the facilities to cater for those cases. I make no generalised complaint, but that is not unknown.
Mr. Aneurin Bevan when dealing with this subject in 1947 said that the Tory Party was miles behind medieval thought. He referred to the fact that the great religious houses in this country gave a comprehensive medical service throughout Europe to the pilgrimage centres. We in this country are giving a lead to the world. We have nothing to be ashamed of in our National Health Service.

Mr. Joseph Harper (Lord Commissioner of the Treasury): I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

AGE OF MAJORITY (SCOTLAND) BILL [Lords]

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered

Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 55 (Third Reading), and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, with Amendments.

LEGAL AID

6.59 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Norman Buchan): I am in some slight doubt whether this matter will be interrupted at seven o'clock.

Mr. Speaker: Order. It will be interrupted in 20 seconds.

Mr. Buchan: I thought that that would be the position. This matter will be discussed after the Private Bill, when the Solicitor-General will conduct the matter. It will be of great interest to the House after the Private Business is completed, and at that stage the changes that we seek to make in the Legal Aid Scheme, both north and south of the Border, will be fully outlined to an attentive House—

WELLAND AND NENE (EMPING HAM RESERVOIR) AND MID -NORTHAMPTONSHIRE WATER BILL (By Order)

Order for Third Reading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: Before the debate begins, I should like to make a brief personal statement. At the outset of this debate, I wish to express my regret to the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) and to the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) for some of my Rulings during the recent debate on the consideration of the Bill on 19th June. Those Rulings were far too restrictive.
At consideration stage of a Private Bill which has been amended in Committee, Amendments may be tabled but rarely are put down. The absence of Amendments for consideration does not, however, mean that there cannot be a substantial debate at consideration stage. Such a debate, like that on Third Reading, is limited to what is in the Bill, and the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford was trying to debate just that. I hope that he will accept my sincere regrets for confining his remarks far too tightly. In this respect, Private Bill procedure differs from that on Public Bills, as the hon. Member has been rightly advised.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: May I thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, for that statement and say that it is a comfort to me, who am, of course, out of order occasionally, quite inadvertently, to find that sometimes Mr. Speaker can also be out of order, slightly inadvertently.

Mr. Speaker: There is a saying that Homer sometimes nods.

7.2 p.m.

Mr. Tom Bradley: The Bill which we are discussing tonight is substantially the same Bill to which we gave a Second Reading on 2nd April. I certainly do not propose this evening to reiterate the detailed presentation of the case for the Bill which I made on that occasion. There were, naturally, rival and varying views expressed on Second Reading, but during the debate quite a number of hon. Members, on both sides of the argument, agreed that the Floor of the Chamber was not a suitable place to argue the merits and the demerits of this type of Bill. Indeed, some hon. Members supported Second Reading because they considered that the Bill should be subjected to meticulous and searching scrutiny by the Private Bill Committee, where learned counsel could be let loose on it. That has now taken place, and after nine days of evidence the Bill has been passed virtually unscathed with only minor amendments.
On today's Order Paper, only one hon. Member is objecting to the Third Reading tonight—naturally enough, the hon. Member for Stamford and Rutland (Mr. Kenneth Lewis). One cannot help admiring the persistence of the hon. Member


but his customary enthusiasm in resisting any matter involving the County of Rutland has once again run away with his judgment.
I must remind the hon. Member and the House that the reservoir which we are discussing this evening will not destroy Rutland. Rutland will need this water every bit as much as do the parts of Northamptonshire, Leicestershire and South Lincolnshire which are encompassed within the area of supply. In any event, I do not know how much longer we shall be talking about Rutland, or, for that matter, any other local government area, because we are now talking of these matters in the wake of the Redcliffe-Maud Report. At the time the reservoir is functioning, it may well be that it will be sited in unitary area No. 31 of the East Midlands province. In that context, the reservoir sounds positively attractive from any point of view!
I think that the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford has overstated his opposition to the Bill. Throughout the entire Private Bill Committee proceedings, the whole approach of the petitioners against the Bill was in marked contrast to the tone of its opponents in this House on Second Reading. The petitioners conceded the case for a reservoir at Empingham. In the words of their learned counsel,
we regard Empingham as a deplorable and regrettable necessity.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: Hear, hear.

Mr. Bradley: The House will recollect, however, that on Second Reading the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford said that there was no case whatever for a reservoir at Empingham. One of his reasons for that assertion was that the promoters of the Bill had exaggerated their population forecast.
Again, the petitioners' counsel said, on the question of population,
happily, there is now no difference between us … and Peterborough has been the subject of an agreed reduction",
due to the delay in implementing the city's development plan.
The hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford also alleged on Second Reading that 40 farmers would be displaced by the reservoir. The Committee proceed-

ings elicited the fact that 23 residences are affected by the Bill, seven farms and 16 cottages, four of which are vacant and derelict.
The hon. Member's criticism of per capita consumption and his advocacy of water from the Lincolnshire limestone were also rebutted in Committee. One by one the allegations went. Indeed, it is difficult to know where to stop in drawing attention to the discrepancies between the hon. Member's speech and the case made by the petitioners in Committee. The only major point which the petitioners pressed was that the reservoir at Empingham should be reduced in size by truncating the shallower upstream arms of the basin by means of two subsidiary stop dams to prevent flooding.
The effect of those two stop dams would be to reduce the acreage of land taken by 1,100 acres in respect of the southern arm and by 1,500 acres by truncating both arms. If that were done, however, the capital cost of the reservoir as outlined in the Bill—£16¾ million—would increase by such truncation by £1·2 million and £2·2 million, respectively. In other words, the additional capital cost per acre of land saved is £1,020 or £1,260 for a daily yield of 38½, million gallons or 34½ million gallons, however the truncation may be affected, as against the 50 million gallons a day which we are seeking by the Bill.
If the full Empingham reservoir, without truncation of any kind, as sought in the Bill is disallowed, the sensible alternative would not be a curtailed Empingham, but a reservoir at Manton. The House will recall that Manton was the second site recommended for investigation by the Water Resources Board in its study of water supplies in South-East England in 1956.
I realise that that still keeps the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford in trouble, because Manton also happens to be in his constituency. It would be much more sensible, however, if the Bill were disallowed, to go to Manton rather than play about with truncating the reservoir at Empingham. Manton would flood only 1,470 acres and it would yield 40 million gallons a day at a cost of £18½ million. Therefore, on every test—yield, costs and saving of acres—Manton is much to be preferred to a truncated Empingham.
But, of course, neither alternative is good enough in terms of quantity and time scale with which the Bill deals. The reservoir which it proposes will yield 50 million gallons a day and that quantity will be needed in full by 1991. Of that quantity, the South Lincolnshire Water Authority will require 14 million gallons a day, primarily to meet the expansion of Peterborough, and the Mid-Northamptonshire Water Board will require the remaining 36 million gallons a day, 4 million of which it has agreed should be sold to the Leicester Water Corporation, which anticipates that amount of short-fall in supply in relation to the growing demand in its area by the end of this century.
The Mid-Northamptonshire Water Board's existing sources will last only until 1975–76. Indeed, they may not last even that long. I understand that the daily consumption yesterday reached a new high of 21¾ million gallons. Last year's average was 18 million gallons, which itself had trebled in the 20 years since 1949. Therefore, it is doubtful if existing sources will last as long as the mid-1970's at this rate of growth. Thereafter, of course, the growth of population planned for the Board's area, together with the increased consumption of water per head and the needs of new industries, make it essential to provide a new source of supply.
I know of no other water board in the South-East which has four new or expanded towns in its area. We should remember that Peterborough City, which must be supplied, is also just outside the area. The four towns—Northampton, Corby, Wellingborough and Daventry—had a total population of 218,000 in 1967. By 1981, that will be 427,000 and, by 2001, it will be 560,000. On the 1981 figure, therefore, the population of these four towns alone will have doubled within six years of the intended completion of this reservoir.
These were the compelling facts which led the Water Resources Board to recommend in 1966 that a reservoir should be constructed at either Empingham or Manton. As I have said, on grounds of yield, cost and engineering, Empingham is to be preferred to Manton. If Parliament does not pass the Bill, the plans to expand these towns, to develop new industries and to introduce overspill from

Birmingham and London will grind to a halt. We shall be putting back the clock.

Sir David Renton: The hon. Member is taking, as he is entitled to do, future projections of population as the foundation of his case. He may know that the birth-rate, however, has already begun to fall since those projections were made. Would he agree that if it falls considerably his projections are completely invalid?

Mr. Bradley: I cannot accept that. The birth-rate may be falling in the constituency of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, but I can assure him it is going up in mine. Anyway, the case for the Bill rests on increased population as a result of overspill from London, Birmingham and elsewhere, and the undoubted fact that the consumption per head of any population is increasing over any given number of years. In 1949, when the Mid-Northamptonshire Water Board was set up, the consumption per head was 23 gallons a day. Today it is 51, expected to rise to 77 by 1981 and to 94 by the end of the century. This is a natural increase per head, which, in addition to the increased number of heads, is the basis for the estimate which I have given. I would also remind the right hon. and learned Gentleman that the petitioners against the Bill agreed to the promoters' figures about population estimates. There is no longer any dispute on this issue.
The Private Bill Committee, in passing this Bill, added an unusual and interesting rider, that, in its view,
.there is an urgent necessity to study the alternative supplies of water. They therefore strongly recommend that a feasibility study of the Wash Barrage be undertaken immediately.
At present, a desk study is in progress, the results of which we shall have at the end of the year. It must be completed before any feasibility study is undertaken. The desk study may come down for a feasibility study, but it may not. We do not know. We shall have to await the results of the desk study.
What I want to make clear is that the promoters do not oppose the so-called Wash Barrage scheme. They would welcome such an enterprise. But if one accepts, as one must, that such a concept cannot possibly, if all else is favourable, yield any Wash water before 1990,


that is obviously outside the time-scale required by the Bill. As I said, the extra water will be urgently needed by the mid1970's—if not before, on the basis of yesterday's figure which I gave.

Mr. Derek Page: Since my hon. Friend says that the Wash Barrage could not be considered pending the result of the feasibility study, is he right in assuming a time scale which could only be justified by such a study?

Mr. Bradley: If we look at the time taken by the Morecambe Bay Study, we can assume that at least a year or so will be taken, and then there are the actual works on the site. If we are thinking of an embankment from Hunstanton to Skegness, which I am now told is an out-of-date concept in terms of the Wash Barrage, serious engineering problems, let alone the navigational problems regarding the four rivers which flow into the Wash, are involved. If, on the other hand, a series of lakes or lagoons are to be created around the periphery, certain rather different problems may also arise. What I am certain of—if this helps my hon. Friend—is that, even if the Wash Barrage feasibility study got off the ground on 1st January next year, we could not get any water from it by 1975, when it is needed under the terms of the Bill.
The promoters also regret very much that this proposal involves taking over 3,000 acres of agricultural land. It is a regrettable necessity. No one, however, gets any pleasure from this. It is one of the melancholy consequences of the relentless demands of the urban dwellers, with their factories, garbage grinders, washing machines, car cleaning plants and hot water systems. The competing claims of the countryside are, of course, powerful, but we must balance one set of needs against another.
I know that financial compensation cannot adequately compensate anyone for the loss of his habits or livelihood, but the promoters, while they recognise that they cannot break the law, are willing to bend it as far as possible in being generous with financial compensation to the few farmers and others displaced by the reservoir. I profoundly hope that this is the last time that any water authority will have to ask Parliament to sanction

the inundation of agricultural land to provide future communities with adequate water. [Interruption.] I do not know what that collective interruption was about. If hon. Members will read the study made in 1966 by the Water Resources Board they will see that the Board pinned great hopes on the exploitation of ground water in the Ouse Basin, the Wash Barrage, by desalination and by other means in the longer-term.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: The collective comment of hon. Members arose simply because the hon. Gentleman had several times quoted from the Committee's proceedings. It was made clear in evidence to the Committee that another eight reservoirs were anticipated, expected and likely to be provided in due course.

Mr. Bradley: They were instanced, but the Board was at pains to point out the imperative need to get a move on with one of them, and that was related only to the one with which we are dealing. The others did not carry the same degree of urgency as the Empingham Reservoir, and their future may depend on the successful exploitation of ground water in the Ouse Basin.

Mr. F. Blackburn: rose—

Mr. Bradley: I will not give way. I promised to be briefer than I was on Second Reading. I have already spoken for longer than I had intended. I hope that my hon. Friend will catch Mr. Speaker's eye and make his own contribution.
I repeat that it is the sincere hope that this is the last time that any water authority will have to ask Parliament to sanction the inundation of agricultural land to provide future communities with adequate water. It depends entirely on the rate of progress that is made in researching and studying the long-term alternative prospects of obtaining more water. It also depends on the degree of encouragement that the Government give to the Water Resources Board in its efforts.
If the controversy surrounding the Bill and the recommendation of the Private Bill Committee have impressed the urgency of the matter on the Government, further good will come of the


Measure. In the meantime, I ask the House to give the Bill a Third Reading to ensure that the pressing needs of this unique area are met in good time.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I have not selected the Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis)—
That the Bill be read the third time upon this day six months"—
but this will not limit the debate in any way.

7.23 p.m.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: I suppose that any date could have been chosen for this Third Reading debate. The Government obviously want this stage of the Bill to be taken as quickly as possible. It is no pleasure for me, today being my birthday, to be discussing water when I should be taking my wife out for a drink. However, as Parliamentary business has meant my being here, it may be as well for me to make certain comments.
Rutland County Council, the farmers of the county and the local population have put up stout opposition to the Bill. I have done my best to carry their flag in the House of Commons. It would be wrong for me to do otherwise now, when we last debated this subject, at the consideration stage of the Bill, I made some remarks rather hurriedly, and I wish to clarify them.
I said that Rutland County Council was likely to withdraw from fighting the Bill. I meant to indicate that it was almost bound to withdraw because of the considerable costs that would be involved in fighting the Bill through all its stages, including through the House of Lords and in Committee. I would not cavil at the county council thinking twice before entering into increased costs, £12,000 already having been spent. This has not been £12,000 entirely of the ratepayers' money, although the ratepayers will have to contribute to it considerably. The local farmers have also contributed to this sum, which has been collected to pay for all the legal expenses involved in an exercise of this kind.
One cannot now go to the farmers who have also given and who are threatened with losing all, and ask them for more

money. Others in the county have contributed to an appeal fund. The cost of all this is considerable, particularly to a small county. Nobody can convince me that had it been Yorkshire, Lancashire or one of the larger counties, the Measure would not have been fought right the way through, including in Committee and through the House of Lords. That was the point I was seeking to make when we last debated the matter.
If the Government, who are behind the Water Resources Board—perforce they must be—want the case against the Bill to be fully made out, and if they want the Measure to go through with the case having been fully adduced—by which I mean at all stages of the Bill, including its passage through the House of Lords—they should help the county council to meet the cost. This, I believe, the Minister of Housing and Local Government is able to do.
Whether or not the Government are prepared to do this, they should help the county council to meet the costs that have already been incurred. No Minister who believes that Parliamentary debate matters even in relation to the Private Bill procedure should wish difficulties to stand in the way of a small authority fighting a very large authority, such as the Water Resources Board, when faced with a massive undertaking of this kind.
When the Bill was in Committee I spent some time listening to the proceedings. I pay tribute to my colleagues who took part in that stage of the Bill. They were in purdah for that time and I did not attempt to disturb them. However, as I listened to the discussion during those nine days I realised the hard work that was involved for them; the grind, the concentration and the almost impossible issue on which they had to adjudicate.
They did something unique in that they provided a special report for the House. This report suggested that, reluctantly, they had agreed to this reservoir but that they hoped that it would be the last. The hon. Member for Leicester, North-East (Mr. Bradley) expressed the same hope, although it did not come out in the evidence to the Board. It was at the Committee stage that the hope was expressed that the Government would produce a Wash Barrage, desalination plant or some other method which would


make it unnecessary in future to dig large holes in the ground.
The Committee was also helpful to Rutland County Council and the other councils in the area by making it clear to the promoters of the Bill that many of the costs which might fall on a small local authority should be borne by the river authority and those who are to run this reservoir. It remains to be seen whether this recommendation is implemented. There is every indication that it will be, and, if it is, the Chairman of the Committee, the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Blackburn) and the members of the Committee will have proved extremely helpful in this matter. The Committee also sent letters to the Prime Minister and the Minister responsible expressing the hope that the Government would explore alternative methods of obtaining water.
This is all fine as far as it goes, but we are now faced with the Third Reading of the Bill and with a proposed reservoir which will cost us nearly 4,000 acres of land. The Government are behind the Bill. The payroll vote, the Government, voted heavily in favour of the Measure on Second Reading, and the same thing may occur tonight.
It is right and proper that the agricultural community should ask any Government how far they should be allowed to go in providing for urban populations to the disadvantage of the countryside. No gigantic lake of this kind, no loss of this amount of land, no farming takeover of this order, no expenditure or turmoil that will take place in the next year or two in this area should be allowed by the House of Commons without considerably probing the position. As I said to the hon. Member for Leicester, North-East, this is one of eight reservoirs. It could mean another 20,000 to 30,000 acres in total. If we are to let acres go in this way there will soon be no more agricultural land.

Mr. John Tilney: All the more reason for getting on with the Dee Barrage, the Morecambe Bay project and the Solway Bay project.

Mr. Lewis: Something like 15 per cent. of land in the country has been urbanised. We are getting towards 20 per cent. Much of the countryside is

not good agricultural land, and it is very easy to say that the percentage in relation to the whole for urban development is not very high if we take into account all the things we require. We need land for roads, airfields, new towns and so on, but the advance across the best acres of the countryside is quite frightening. If it goes on we shall be left with less valuable land, with only woodland and mountain and have to export our population to keep those who are left on the reduced amount of output of food we need. Simply to pass a Bill of this kind without considering these very important matters would be very wrong indeed.
The cost of this reservoir will be £20 million or £30 million. I guess that in a year or two the cost will escalate considerably. If we accept that there are to be six or eight others the total cost will be something about £150 million to £175 million. That is getting towards the cost of a Wash Barrage. It is certainly getting towards the kind of cost involved in a project for desalination. The proposals in this Bill are Victorian. They are not in keeping with the white heat of the technological revolution, which I think the Prime Minister said would be the basis of activity of this Government. This is the kind of thing that our forefathers were doing. We should have a new system and new methods of getting water supply. If we flood acres in order to flush lavatories we are not very much up to day. The world is waiting for a development which will give it more water supply. We are not the only country which is short of water or the means of preserving it.
This island is surrounded by water. Nye Bevan once said that it is surrounded by fish and covered with coal but short of both. If we could harness this water, although it would be expensive at the beginning, it could be the biggest advance since the discovery of oil.

Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot debate tonight desalination of water. The hon. Member must relate his remarks to the Bill.

Mr. Lewis: I accept that, Mr. Speaker, and I anticipated that there might be a remonstrance about my going outside the terms of the Bill. The Bill is a pointer to what we need. If we could pioneer such a method in our country we could


go far to solving many problems not only here but in many countries. We did that with nuclear power and electricity supply; why not do it with water? We shall never do it with Bills of this kind, just as we shall not get progress in industry without innovating and inventing. We need to leap into the ideas of the future instead of resting on the ideas of the past.
The Preamble to the Bill says:
whereas the demand for, water within the area of the River Authority has increased, is increasing and will shortly be beyond the capacity of the existing sources of supply …
and goes on to say why this Bill is necessary. The hon. Member for Leicester, North-East challenged some figures which I gave. He quoted from the Committee stage of the Bill and said that there were only seven farms and eleven cottages involved. In fact Mr. J. G. Eve said that there are 58 holdings, of which some are cottages. I do not know whether my figures are correct or the figures quoted by the hon. Member or those given by Mr. Eve, but I assure the hon. Member that the number of farms and cottages involved is greater than the number he mentioned and nearer to the number which I quoted on Second Reading. I checked on that number. Although it is true not all of them would be drowned, many would be affected and some of these people would have to move because of works surrounding the reservoir. It is not a question of how many farmers are affected but of how much land is involved.
One farmer can farm 500 acres while another farms 1,000 acres. We are debating this matter on the basis of loss of productive land. That is the answer to the comments the hon. Member made about my figures. I dispute some of these figures. Having read in the Preamble that the case is on the basis of increased demand, what did we find in Committee? On Second Reading I challenged figures which I said were exaggerated. I challenged the city of Leicester figures and the new town figures. The city of Leicester had an expert before the Committee. He admitted that the figures given by the city before the Bill went into Committee were exaggerated and said that the amount of water required, 4,000 million gallons, would not be required until the end of the century. Before the

Bill went into Committee the city had said that that amount would be required in the early 1970s.
So the city of Leicester does not require this water until the end of the century. I contend that the new town figures are also exaggerated. I can only say that they are. I cannot prove that they are, because the new town is not yet built. I tried to prove it on Second Reading on the basis that the only new town we had was the new town of Corby and I tried to prove that the figures for the new town of Corby were exaggerated.
Before this Committee it was proved that the figures for the city of Leicester were exaggerated. if the other figures are exaggerated, the whole case for the Bill is exaggerated. I do not see why Rutland would put up with a reservoir because the efforts of the hon. Member for Leicester, North-East are apparently so prodigious that there is a population increase in his constituency. I hope that that figure is equally as exaggerated as are the figures for the demand of water. I rest my case still on exaggeration. I accept, however, that the Bill has been through its Committee stage.

Mr. Bradley: As the hon. Gentleman has obviously not finished his series of exaggerations, will he inform the House how the area is to get its water by 1975, bearing in mind that the petitioners against the Bill—his constituents—agreed that the promoters' estimates of population were correct.

Mr. Lewis: The opponents of the Bill—the representatives of my constituents—did two things. First, they discovered that the figure for Leicester was wrong. Secondly, they accepted the guesswork of the promoters. It is purely guesswork. On Second Reading I tried to prove that there could be a bridging situation between now and the 1970s. I concede that, if there is not the Wash Barrage or some breakthrough on desalination by the 1980s or 1990s, we shall be in trouble. I assume that there will be a development of the Wash Barrage, or something else.

Mr. Bradley: Not by 1971.

Mr. Lewis: By the 1980s. Then the bridging situation which I put forward on Second Reading comes into play. I


do not think that that bridging situation would have been denied if it had been put to the Committee.
Page 3 of the Bill sets out the cost. I have said that it is likely to escalate. It is for this reason that I think we should have had a truncated scheme. It may be said that the cost difference would not be all that great. Nevertheless, the, difference is there and we would have saved 1,500 acres of good land. This is where I can help the lion. Gentleman: we could have got the water for a bridging situation between now and the late 1970s and early 1980s from a truncated Empingham. I still believe that that would have been a reasonable compromise. The reason that it was not proposed by the Committee was partly technical, because the Committee had to look at the Bill as it stood. It could not look at a Bill which did not have within it the alternative of a truncated Empingham.

Sir Harry Legge-Bourke: As my hon. Friend is now advocating a truncated scheme, does he challenge the figures which I have given, that the Empingham Reservoir as proposed in the Bill would cost £336,000 per yield of one million gallons per day, whereas a truncated scheme would cost £468,000?

Mr. Lewis: I should have thought that those figures made my case, because the difference is small enough to justify the saving of land. This was not an issue before the Committee, although it was put to the Committee. I think that the Committee might well have decided to suggest that the promoters brought forward another Bill. If the House refuses to give the Bill a Third Reading, we can look at a truncated Empingham.
The Bill is a massive document. It contains proposals which provide for the greatest construction scheme relating to water that there has been for many decades—new roads, old roads re-routed, new bridges, electricity pylons to be changed, rivers to be diverted, the removal of woods, the digging of tunnels, the erecting of buildings of one sort and another. It is a mammoth construction.
To go from the fantastic to the sublime, the Bill contains one item which must be unique in a water Bill. There is mention of a bishop. Clause 22 says:

'the bishop' means the bishop of the diocese of Peterborough".
It is not that the bishop is to be drowned, but that the parish church of St. Matthew, which stands in the middle of a field in my constituency, is to be submerged. It looks as if the Church has done about as good a deal with the promoters as anybody. The promoters have apparently agreed to remove the church. It is a very beautiful church in a very pastoral setting. The promoters are to remove the church with
the remains of all deceased persons interred therein",
including the remains of the ancestors of a predecessor of mine in this place, the Earl of Ancaster. The promoters are to build the church higher up. I am more concerned with the living, than with the dead.
It is all very well for the House to discuss a Bill whose implementation will cost £30 million and to say, "The farmers will be looked after. They will be compensated. They will be all right. We can afford to lose a little land". Some of us think that this is very serious. Others may not think so.
All of us would hope that those who are to lose their livelihoods will at least be looked after. Those owning the farms in which they live will get market value plus disturbance. Nobody has indicated what disturbance will be. I hope that it will be generous. I think that the tenant farmer comes off very badly, because he is to get four years rent, with an option of two years rent which the promoters assure me that they will provide. There is some doubt about this, because in Committee Mr. Eve said—page 20, Evidence, Sixth Day—that he thought that it would be possible for a tenant to claim up to two years' profits as well as two years' rent.
I do not know whether it is two years' profit or two years' rent. All I know, representing an agricultural constituency, if that it is based on last year's profits and this year's profits, tenant farmers will not get much, because they have had two thundering ba years. Therefore, if the promoters are to be generous, as they say that they want to be, it is necessary that they should take the maximum of profits in any two recent years rather than the minimum. We have no right to build our urban future on the backs of our


rural present. We have no right to expect a tenant farmer in the prime of his life suddenly to come out with a minimum amount of money, with insufficient capital to buy a farm, and no place available to rent because everyone with farms to rent today has a queue of people waiting for that farm.
Not only should the promoters be generous on this basis, but in view of the cost of the undertaking, the Government should consider being even more generous than is laid down in dealing with tenant farmers in particular. The cost of the project is in direct contrast to the compensation they will receive.
The Bill deals with a method of pre- serving water that is out-dated. It is proposed on problematical data. It is terrifyingly big, and it does not even say that it will provide us with cheaper water. There is a Clause allowing the water undertakings taking water from the river board to increase their charges for water, so we are not even to have the advantage of cheaper water by having the reservoir.
When history comes to be written it will be said, if we pass the Bill, that we clung to the old-fashioned methods at increased cost rather than going forward with more modern, innovative methods that come to us through our modern technology, and which in the early stages might be expensive but in the long run would provide us with cheaper water, just as we now have cheaper oil and gas.

7.52 p.m.

Mr. Bert Hazell: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-East (Mr. Bradley) on the excellent manner in which he presented his case. All hon. Members, whatever their views on the issue, will wish to join me in those congratulations, because it is obvious that he has given a great deal of thought and care to the preparation and presentation of the case.
But I must oppose my hon. Friend on this issue. As the House will be aware, I am the President of the National Union of Agricultural Workers, and my Oakham district committee, covering this part of Rutland, has been one of the organisations that have resisted the Bill and given support to the industry generally

for the retention of the land for agricultural purposes.
I shall not make any extravagant claims; the facts speak for themselves. As the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) said, it does not matter how many homesteads may be involved; the fact is that 3,000 acres of land will go out of production for all time, lost for good—

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: It is nearer 4,000 acres.

Mr. Hazell: If I say over 3,000 acres, I think that that will meet the situation.

Mr. Bradley: My hon. Friend is much nearer the mark. It is 3,114 acres that are to be inundated.

Mr. Hazell: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.

Mr. Lewis: There are also all the works round about.

Mr. Hazell: I stand by the point I made. Over 3,000 acres of land are involved, in addition to over 55,000 acres of land that go out of cultivation every year. We can ill afford to loose our heritage in this way. If we pass the Bill we are doing something that will remove an area for ever.
With the increasing millions of population, and the necessity to take more land in the future for homes, roads, schools and so on, if there is any alternative to the use of land for this purpose the House and the country should give it first priority. My members feel that there is an alternative—the Wash Barrage. I accept that it is only at desk study level. Assuming that the desk study report is favourable, there must then be a feasibility study, and I accept that this process will be very long. But I am also aware that corporations and vast undertakings tend to exaggerate their demands in an endeavour to make their claim with the utmost conviction. I wonder whether a delay of a year or two in ascertaining whether or not it is shown that it is feasible for a barrage to be built will damage the cause of the people in the area that the reservoir will serve.
The Oakham district committee of my union is concerned, and has participated in opposition to the Bill, for the


following reasons. About 20 farm workers will have their livelihood affected by the scheme. That may not be many, but they are 20 people, and they have a right to be considered. It is their livelihood, their occupation, that is concerned. Most of them have lived in the area all their lives, and it is not easy to be uprooted and told to seek fresh employment elsewhere, make new acquaintances, find new schools for the children and so on. If there is a queue for farms, as the hon. Gentleman declared, obtaining homes for farm workers will be no easy matter. Every local authority that I know has a pretty long waiting list of urgent claims which, in the view of the people on those lists, need prior consideration.
The hon. Gentleman suggested that owners of land will be fairly generously treated, though one is a little doubtful how much compensation tenant farmers might secure. But my experience of farm workers is that when they are displaced they receive no compensation, and my organisation feels very strongly about this. If my hon. Friend can indicate that displaced farm workers will be adequately compensated, my members will be much happier, though this will not remove the main objection to the scheme.
Other hon. Members wish to take part in the debate, so I shall be brief. I conclude on this note. I have an awful fear—and I am sure that I am not alone in this—that if the House approves the Bill the full feasibility study of the Wash Barrage is likely to be pigeon-holed for many a long year. All who have interested themselves in the Wash Barrage scheme have come to the conclusion that if such a barrage is possible it will meet our long-term problem, not just for the area with which we are now concerned but for a much wider area, and increase the land available subsequently. So we do not want to see the feasibility study shelved.
Therefore, in order that the feasibility study might be embarked upon and not pigeon-holed, I hope that the House will reject the Bill. I believe that it is good for this country in the long term and I hope that the House will also recognise this point.

Sir D. Renton: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In the unusual

circumstances of a special report having been made to this House, which it is in order for the House to consider on this occasion—that is clear from Mr. Speaker's Ruling—and bearing in mind that the report engages the responsibility of the Government and strongly recommends that a feasibility study of the Wash Barrage be undertaken immediately, would it not be conducive to the best ordering of the debate if we could hear the Government's views before proceeding further?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Sydney Irving): I am afraid that this is not a matter for the Chair. I have no doubt that the Minister heard what the right hon. and learned Gentleman had to say.

Sir D. Renton: May I take it, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the Minister for Planning and Land has taken heed of what you and I have just said?

8.1 p.m.

Sir Harry Legge-Bourke: In all the time that I have been a Member of this House, both here and outside I have tried to avoid saying anything which was likely to exacerbate feeling between town and country. But I cannot help saying, with deep regret, that the attitude adopted by my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) will do just that if he is not careful.
No one likes to put good agricultural land under water unnecessarily, but I have recollections, as I expect have many hon. Members, of having to live on a pint and a half of water a day for all too long during World War II.
I am conscious that one of the biggest problems arising over water supply in this country today is not only that caused by the increasing size of water consumption of urban areas but by the fact that rural areas are now being provided with a piped water supply where hitherto they probably had to go off with a bucket and draw it from the nearest well. One problem which now besets the water undertakings promoting the Bill is that the daily consumption of water has been steadily rising not only because of urban demands but also because of the demands from rural areas.
I cannot understand the attitude of my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland


and Stamford tonight when I compare it with what he said on Second Reading:
We are not lacking in public conscience. There is no alternative to this reservoir. We will accept it."—[OFFICIAL, REPORT, 2nd April, 1969; Vol. 781, c. 574.]
He then went on to try to suggest that the figures and proposals put forward by the water board could prove the reservoir to be unnecessary.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: If the Bill goes through all its stages in this House and another place, the County of Rutland, when it is faced with this reservoir, will co-operate. I said that, and it is true. I suppose that we could start putting tractors in the middle of the roads to prevent construction taking place and indulge in other activities like they do in other places, but we would not think of doing that. I said "if we were faced with it". That does not alter the fact that we have a right to put forward our views against it in both Houses.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I do not resent my hon. Friend putting the case against the Bill if he feels obliged to do so. But on Second Reading he made clear that there was no alternative to this reservoir, although he said he would endeavour to show that it was unnecessary.
The Bill was sent to a Select Committee as an opposed Private Bill. I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Blackburn) and his colleagues who sat on the Committee on the hard work that they put in. Having presided over a number of Committees on opposed private water Bills, I realise what this involves. The fact that the Committee sat for nine days and examined every challenge to the Bill made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford, at the end of the exercise coming out in favour of the Bill and recommending it back to the House, though making this special report about the desirability for a feasibility study of the Wash Barrage, makes my hon. Friend's arguments a great deal weaker, I suggest, than when he produced the same arguments on Second Reading.
I was a little surprised to hear my hon. Friend pleading the poverty of Rutland as a reason for not carrying opposition to the Bill through another place as well as here. If one single Member ought to take credit for Rutland being still on

its own, it is my hon. Friend. But I am sure that he realises there are possibly other reasons besides the efforts which he put in at the time. This is one of the problems which all local authorities have to face. They must recognise that if they are involved in national affairs of one kind or another, be it water or anything else, there may come a time, if they are too small, when they will not be able to stand up against greater national considerations.
However, I regard the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford as an old friend and I do not wish to say anything unnecessarily to antagonise him. But I seriously suggest that the battle that he wanted fought on Second Reading is over. That has been done before the Select Committee. But my hon. Friend ought to be taking credit for a certain amount of kudos coming out of the fact that a special report has been submitted to the House by the Select Committee urging a feasibility study of the Wash Barrage.
About 15 or 16 years ago the late Sir Murdoch Macdonald, who was recognised as being one of the greatest civil engineers that this country has had for a long time—although no doubt he would claim that for Scotland—and I went into the research department of the Library and got out all the charts and looked at the project of the Wash Barrage at that time. His calculation, even then, was that the cost of a barrage could not be much less than £200 million, because it would mean that the foundations would have to be at least 200 ft. deep below the bed of the sea if it was to stand the strain. My hon. Friend has used the cost of the exercise as a reason for not going ahead with it. That is a very dangerous argument indeed if he wants the Wash Barrage.

Sir D. Renton: My hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) will no doubt recollect that we were both colleagues of the late Sir Murdoch Macdonald, who ceased to be a Member of this House nearly 20 years ago, and that since then there have been the most tremendous technical advances in engineering.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I accept that. I try, as I know my right hon. and learned Friend realises, to keep abreast as far as possible of the various methods of


coping with water supplies, and I mentioned another possible method on Second Reading—reverse osmosis. The opinion on cost in those days was about £200 million. It may be that there could be savings. I do not know. But we are talking about enormous sums of money in thinking of barrages. If we started the Wash Barrage today—and that could not be done—we could not possibly ensure that a large number of people will not go too short of water for far too long. Nothing short of reservoirs can serve the immediate need of providing by the mid-1970s a greatly increased quantity of water. This is the only solution, and the Select Committee so decided. We are being asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford to throw overboard any usefulness of the Select Committees on opposed Private Bills. It is almost an insult to the Select Committee not to accept its recommendation. I strongly support the Bill as being the only possible solution in the time available.

8.10 p.m.

The Minister for Planning and Land (Mr. Kenneth Robinson): It may help the House if I intervene at this stage and perhaps I can reassure the right hon and learned Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) that it was my intention to rise at this point, which in any case is about the normal order of batting for a Minister on a Private Bill
The Government's attitude towards the Bill is, briefly, that it should be given its Third Reading. The Select Committee spent nine days considering the Bill and at the end approved it with Amendments which did not go to the substance of the Measure. I echo what the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) said about the Committee and, in particular, about its Chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Blackburn).
In the event, the petitioners who appeared before the Committee accepted the regrettable necessity for the construction of a reservoir at Empingham, although they question the form that it should take. They suggested that it should have three dams instead of one, the extra dams serving to prevent the flooding of the shallow ends of the arms. The promoters indicated why they were

opposed to this modification, and the Committee approved the reservoir provisions as originally proposed.
A great deal has been said already about the special report of the Committee. It was when it was faced with the possibility of a succession of surface reservoir schemes in the years to come that the Committee made this report to the House, giving the view that a full feasibility study of a Wash Barrage should be undertaken without further delay. It was good enough to inform my right hon. Friend of its view in advance, and he has explained to it that a decision about a feasibility study must await the outcome of a desk study already in progress.
A Wash Barrage is, in the Government's view, a most interesting idea, and if it were to prove a feasible proposition it would undoubtedly save much agricultural land from being flooded for reservoir purposes in the future But a full feasibility study is an expensive exercise in itself, and the Government feel, therefore, that we should await the results of the desk study now in progress before deciding the next step.
In any event, we need the results of the desk study before we could decide the parameters of a feasibility study. Meanwhile, a full feasibility study is in progress in Morecambe Bay, and it may well be that the results of that will throw some light on at any rate some of the extremely complicated problems of a Wash Barrage. The Wash desk study, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-East (Mr. Bradley) said, should be completed by the end of this year, and we shall examine the results in depth alongside the other information which is coming along relevant to the wider problems of water supplies for the South-East.
Estuarial barrages are not the only nor necessarily the best or most economical means of saving land. It is one of the main attractions of taking water from underground strata that it makes virtually no demands on farmland. The absraction of underground water can be extended stage by stage as demand grows instead of having to be fully developed as a reservoir from the outset. Underground water is usually of much better quality than river water and so requires much less by way of treatment. This


and the more measured development both help to save costs and make underground supplies relatively cheap. It was for these reasons that the Government decided in 1966 to give priority to a systematic study of the development of ground water in the Great Ouse and Thames basins, and that study is now in progress also.
To sum up, we want to know what scheme or schemes in the Wash, if any, are worth closer investigation and what they would be likely to cost. We want to know what other water resources are in prospect according to other current studies so as to be able to decide which investments of resources in research and development offer the best value to the nation in terms of money, water and land. I remind the House that, however fast we were to move, we simply could not produce water supplies from the Wash in time to meet the situation for which this Bill was devised.

Mr. Derek Page: What method are the Government using to separate the water costs of any Wash scheme from the multiple benefits which would accrue?

Mr. Robinson: These matters are being examined in the desk study but I have not yet seen even an interim report, and so I would not like to speculate. But we shall have the complete report before the end of the year.
Both promoters and petitioners, and, I am sure, the Committee and the House, regret the need to take out of use good agricultural land at Empingham but, in my view, the promoters have amply demonstrated that there just is no alternative if adequate supplies of water for domestic and industrial purposes are to be maintained.
If the Bill is passed and the reservoir built as proposed, the Government would hope that the flexible use of this and other sources would make it possible to meet the short-term pressing needs not only of the promoters but also of neighbouring areas. They therefore commend the Bill to the House not only on the strength of the local case which the promoters have properly made for a local Bill but also because it fits admirably into the overall strategy for meeting the water needs of the South-East.
On Second Reading I reminded the House that the Floor of the House is not the most appropriate place to consider the detailed issues involved in a Bill like this and I recommended that the House should give the Bill its Second Reading and send it to a Select Committee, where a searching and careful consideration would take place on those issues. I do not think that the House could have asked for a more thoroughgoing consideration than this Bill has had in Committee. In the event, it emerged that even the petitioners against the Bill found themselves unable to gainsay that a reservoir at Empingham is needed, and, as we know, the Committee passed the Bill. I recommend the House to give the Bill its Third Reading.

8.17 p.m.

Mr. Graham Page: I first put on record my thanks to Mr. Speaker for his gracious Ruling on the extent of a debate on consideration of a Private Bill. This Bill has achieved some measure of fame afforded to few such Bills. This is because of the gallant, persistent and pugnacious attack upon it by my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis). I rather wish that the House had been unrestrained enough earlier today to burst into "Happy birthday to you" when he revealed that today is his birthday.
At the same time, I compliment the hon. Member for Leicester, North-East (Mr. Bradley), who has contributed to bringing this Bill its fame by the rather thankless job of putting an unpopular case to the House, which he has done with great force and skill.
The Bill has undoubtedly raised national issues disproportionate to the small size of the county which my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford represents. It has made the House think about the national epidemic of reservoir rash; about the probable increase in consumption and the disposal of water during the next decade or two; and, perhaps even more important, about the cost of that provision and disposal both nationally and locally. One finds that the cost of the provision which must be made in the next 10, 20 and 30 years is staggering.
The Bill has also made the House think about the advances of science


to meet the desperate need for an increased supply of water—for example, the advances in artificial recharge of the limestone areas, in desalination research and in civil engineering—with the prospect of being able to go forward with a scheme for a Wash Barrage.
The Bill has resulted in the unusual and impressive report from the Committee. The House will not begrudge the time spent here or in Committee on the Bill when such important issues have been raised. After the Minister's speech I am not sure whether the Government have learned their lesson from this. I hope they have, but the impression I got when the Minister was speaking was that this water has run off the duck's back of the Government, and because it is a Private Bill there has not been the same feeling of responsibility for the issues raised as there would have been if it was a Government Measure.
We raised this point during Second Reading, that it was a pity that these measures are not brought forward on the basis of Orders under the Water Resources Act instead of by Private Bill, because Orders are the direct responsibility of the Government. This Bill authorises a reservoir which could be superfluous soon after it is built. If it were suddenly found that the Wash Barrage was feasible, and if the Government suddenly decided to throw all resources into it and go ahead with a scheme of that sort—

Mr. Blackburn: I was Chairman of the Committee and it ought to be made clear that any responsible Committee of this House would have had to do the same as we did and find that the case for the Empingham Reservoir was overwhelming. Our report was because of the future. We were told that there were another eight schemes in the pipeline. It was because of those that we put in this special report about the Wash Barrage—not as an alternative to Empingham.

Mr. Page: I accept that, and it is what I was about to say. I was saying, in perhaps not sufficiently sarcastic tones, that this could be superfluous if it were found tomorrow that the Wash Barrage was feasible and if the Government were prepared to put all resources into it at once. That is not what the Minister has

said. He has said that the desk study is proceeding on the Wash Barrage scheme and he expects the report at the end of the year. As the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Blackburn) has said, the Committee drew attention to that in its report. All of us who have debated the Bill are convinced that we cannot do without those big schemes eventually.
We cannot go on after the eight Empinghams to have another eight and then another eight. We have to produce the big schemes at some time—the Wash, the Dee, the Solway and so on—because of the consumption increase, not only in urban areas, but in the rural areas, too. When we look at the figures, all of this is inevitable. There must be the big schemes, even if some of the figures are exaggerated as my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford said. Looking at past increases in the use of water and at well-informed forecasts of the future, we might be forgiven for concluding that we are a nation of perpetual plug-pullers and fanatical flushers. Certainly the figures are astonishing. Empingham reservoir, and perhaps the other seven Empinghams, is an interim penalty for this permissiveness.
The House is guided by the proceedings in Committee, but it is not bound by admissions and concessions or petitions in Committee. I at once pay tribute, as others have, to the wonderful work of the Committee under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde. It spent nine long days studying this in very great detail, and the House is guided by its decisions.
At the same time the House is at liberty to look at the principle afresh when the Bill comes back on Third Reading, to look at it in the light of well-informed forecasts of population, of needs, and of the science to meet those needs, to see whether at this stage the Bill should become law. We are entitled to consider the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford about the truncated reservoir. In this connection, because the Bill permits work to be done only as set out in Clause 5, not all those works need be done if the authority decided not to carry them out. It may be that in another place it would wish to put forward a possible alternative


scheme. I do not think that we have had sufficient evidence tonight that it is feasible.
We are entitled to look at the compensation provisions in the Bill, both for the owner-occupier of land and for the tenant farmer. I join with others who say that the compensation provisions for tenant farmers are undoubtedly unfair. It would have been better perhaps had the promoters decided to amend the general law a little in this respect. I am glad that the Committee has dropped directly into the lap of the Minister, and, through him, that of the Government, the responsibility for getting on with this desk study of the Wash Barrage. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) said, this is now, having regard to the Committee's

report, a real Government responsibility which they cannot escape.

The Government have already partially accepted that responsibility by setting up a desk study, but from the way in which the Minister spoke about the Wash Barrage being a most interesting idea, I did not get the impression that it was being considered with the urgency that we would like. As my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) said, we are talking of very large sums of money. When we talk of these great barrage schemes we are talking of the basic needs of the residential, industrial and commercial life of the country.

Question put:—

The House divided: Ayes 75, Noes 65.

Division No. 303.]
AYES
[8.30 p.m.


Alldritt, Walter
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Orbach, Maurice


Armstrong, Ernest
Henig, Stanley
Oswald, Thomas


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Hunter, Adam
Pentland, Norman


Barnett, Joel
Hynd, John
Perry, Ernest G. (Battersea, S.)


Beaney, Alan
Irvine, Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)
Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.)


Bence, Cyril
Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Quennell, Miss J. M.


Bishop, E. S.
Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)
Rankin, John


Blackburn, F.
Kelley, Richard
Robinson, Rt. Hn. Kenneth (St. P'c'as)


Bradley, Tom
Lawson, George
Rodgers, William (Stockton)


Buchan, Norman
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)


Concannon, J. D.
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Silverman, Julius


Conlan, Bernard
Lomas, Kenneth
Slater, Joseph


Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stretford)
Loughlin, Charles
Snow, Julian


Dempsey, James
Lubbock, Eric
Spriggs, Leslie


Dobson, Ray
McCann, John
Symonds, J. B.


Doig, Peter
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)
Tinn, James


Ellis, John
McNair-Wilson, Michael
Urwin, T. W.


Fernyhough, E,
Mallalieu, J.P.W.(Huddersfield, E.)
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


Ford, Ben
Mapp, Charles
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Garrett, W. E.
Marks, Kenneth
Whitlock, William


Gregory, Arnold
Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert
Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.


Grey, Charles (Durham)
Millan, Bruce
Wyatt, Woodrow


Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Miller, Dr. M. S.



Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)
Milne, Edward (Blyth)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)
Mr. William Hamling and


Hannan, William
Neal, Harold
Mr. David Ensor.


Harper, Joseph






NOES


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)
Monro, Hector


Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.)
Griffiths, Will (Exchange)
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.


Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)
Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.
Newens, Stan


Bidwell, Sydney
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Norwood, Christopher


Biffen, John
Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Onslow, Cranley


Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward
Hazell, Bert
Orme, Stanley


Brewis, John
Hooley, Frank
Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian


Campbell, Gordon (Moray &amp; Nairn)
Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Page, Derek (King's Lynn)


Chataway, Christopher
Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Page, John (Harrow, W.)


Cooke, Robert
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David


Cordle, John
Jackson Peter M. (High Peak)
Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)


Davidson, James (Aberdeenshire, W.)
Kerr Mrs Anne (R'ter &amp; Chatham)
Roebuck, Roy


Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. (Ashford)

Steel, David (Roxburgh)


Errington, Sir Eric
Kimball, Marcus
Taylor, Edward M.(G'gow, Cathcart)


Evans, Gwynfor (C'marthen)
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret


Ewing, Mrs. Winifred
MacArthur, Ian
Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.


Farr, John
Mackenzie, Alasdair (Ross &amp; Crom'ty)
Waddington, David


Faulds, Andrew
Marten, Neil
Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Maude, Angus
Ward, Dame Irene


Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)
Mills, Peter (Torrington)
Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William




Wiggin, A. W.
Wright, Esmond
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Williams, Donald (Dudley)
Wylie, N. R.
Mr. Albert Booth and Mr. Paul Hawkins.


Winstanley, Dr. M. P.
Younger, Hn. George

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

LEGAL AID

8.35 p.m.

The Solicitor-General (Sir Arthur Irvine): I beg to move,
That the Legal Aid (Extension of Proceedings) Regulations 1969, a copy of which was laid before this House on 16th June, be approved.
It may be convenient to the House—if it is agreeable to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker—if I speak to these Regulations and to those following, that is, the Legal Aid (Extension of Proceedings) (Scotland) Regulations.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Sydney Irving): With the leave of the House they may be taken together.

The Solicitor-General: I am obliged, Mr. Deputy Speaker. These Legal Aid (Extension of Proceedings) Regulations implement the recommendation of the Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Legal Aid that legal aid should be extended to certain proceedings in the magistrates' court and to proceedings partly for defamation. The relevant paragraphs in the 17th Report of the Advisory Committee are paragraphs 5 to 11 inclusive and paragraph 47.
The Regulations also re-enact the provisions of Regulation 1A of the Legal Aid (General) Regulations which are the proceedings referred to in paragraph 1 of the Schedule to the Regulations for which I am now asking approval, and proceedings under Section 3 of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1963, referred to in paragraph 2. These proceedings are "care and protection proceedings."
This part of the Regulations is a matter of convenience. It is thought to be more convenient to be able to find the proceedings to which legal aid has been extended in separate Extension of Proceedings Regulations, rather than in the Legal Aid General (Regulations) which cover a wide variety of general matters connected with legal aid. The proceedings to which legal aid is being extended by these Regulations are contained in Regulation 2 and paragraphs 2 and 3 of the Schedule.
First, in relation to certain proceedings which are partly in respect of defamation, paragraph 1 of Part II of the First Schedule to the Legal Aid and Advice Act, 1949, excludes proceedings wholly or partly in respect of defamation from the proceedings for which legal aid may be given. These proceedings were excluded because it was feared that there would be a flood of unmeritorious applications arising out of petty disputes.
However, this meant that in the occasional case where legal aid was given to a plaintiff claiming damages, for example, for wrongful dismissal and the defendant alleged that the plaintiff was dismissed because he libelled him and counterclaimed for damages for libel, the plaintiff's legal aid could not be continued, as the proceedings became, in that hypothesis, "partly in respect of defamation". Regulation 2 saves the plaintiff's legal aid and makes it possible for it to be extended in an appropriate case to cover the defence to the counter-claim.
In recommending this extension, the Advisory Committee accepted the unanimous recommendation of a Joint Committee of the Council of the Law Society and General Council of the Bar. That Committee also recommended, with one dissentient, that legal aid should become available for proceedings wholly in respect of libel or slander. The reference to that recommendation will be found in paragraph 10 at page 53 of the Report. But the Advisory Committee felt that the risk of unmeritorious applications, which had led to the original exclusion of proceedings for defamation, to be a very real one. Accordingly, the Committee, having regard to the consequences, financial and otherwise, of the proposed extension, decided not to "recommend this proposal among those meriting consideration at the present time". The Government accept this view.
Secondly, the Regulations extend legal aid in respect of proceedings in a magistrates' court under Sections 2 and 4 of the Children Act 1948. Section 2 of that Act empowers a local authority to pass a resolution vesting in itself parental rights over a child. Until now a parent or guardian who wishes to oppose such a resolution before a magistrates' court has


not been able to obtain legal aid to do so. These Regulations make it available.
They also make it available for proceedings under Section 4 of the Children Act to rescind or vary such a Resolution. This is a consequential extension of the Advisory Committee's recommendation that legal aid should be available for proceedings under Section 2.
Thirdly, the Regulations extend legal aid in respect of proceedings under Section 22 of the Maintenance Orders Act, 1950, or Section 4 of the Maintenance Orders Act, 1958, to vary a maintenance order registered in a magistrates' court. Legal aid is available at present for obtaining or enforcing maintenance orders. It is not available for their subsequent variation where they are either made in the High Court but registered in a magistrates' court, or originate in a Scottish or Northern Irish court, but are registered in an English magistrates' court. These Regulations make it available.
Section 22 of the Maintenance Orders Act, 1950, relates to proceedings to vary a registered Northern Irish or Scottish order, and Section 4 of the Maintenance Orders Act, 1958, relates to registered High Court orders.
Fourthly, the Regulations extend legal aid in respect of proceedings under Section 23 of the Ministry of Social Security Act, 1966, and Section 43 of the National Assistance Act, 1948. The Supplementary Benefits Commission can bring proceedings under Section 23 of the 1966 Act against persons who fail to maintain their dependants and those dependants have claimed or been paid benefit by the Commission. Similarly, a local authority which has provided accommodation for a person's dependants can bring proceedings against that person to recover the cost of having done so. Although these proceedings are closely analagous to maintenance proceedings, legal aid is not available in respect of them at present. These Regulations remedy this by making it available to those against whom these proceedings are brought.
Fifthly and finally, in relation to opposed adoption proceedings in a magistrates' court—this refers to paragraph 3 of the Schedule—at present legal aid is available in respect of adoption proceedings in the High Court and the county court but not in a magistrates' court.

Although the proceedings in a magistrates' court are so simple that legal aid may be unnecessary, there are circumstances where it should be available. These are where a parent or guardian wishes to contest an adoption order and the court is invited to dispense with that person's consent. These Regulations make legal aid available to both parties where the court is asked to dispense with consent under section 5 of the Adoption Act. 1958.
The cost of these extensions is very little. The total cost is estimated to be in the region of £2,670 a year. The most expensive item is the provision for legal aid for the variation of maintenance orders, which is £1,300 a year. The slight cost of these extensions is, of course, due to the fact that only a few people will benefit from the extensions and receive legal aid for these proceedings. Nevertheless, such cases will be of great importance to those people concerned and the House may well think that this small addition to the ambit of the Legal Aid Scheme should be approved, and I commend it.
As we are taking also the Scottish Regulations, may I, greatly daring, be allowed to say a word about them. They seek to achieve objectives which are more limited than those of the corresponding Regulations for England and Wales. Their purpose is to vary the proceedings in connection with which legal aid may be given to make legal aid available in certain proceedings in respect of defamation or verbal injury. Such proceedings are at present excluded from the Legal Aid Scheme in terms of Part II of Schedule 1 to the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act, 1967.
It is intended that this extension of the Legal Aid Scheme, as is also provided by Regulation 2 of the corresponding Regulations for England and Wales, relate only to proceedings in which the defender has entered a counter-claim for defamation or verbal injury. The Schedule to the corresponding Regulations for England and Wales includes provisions for an extension of legal aid to other civil proceedings. I understand that there is no necessity for similar provision to be made in the Scottish Regulations since proceedings of this type are taken in the sheriffs' court and therefore, I am told, they already qualify for legal aid. My


right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland has consulted the Law Society of Scotland which has agreed that it is desirable that this minor extension of the Legal Aid Scheme in Scotland should be made.

8.48 p.m.

Sir David Renton: Although I would not dare to have the temerity of the Solicitor-General to meddle in Scottish affairs—I shall leave it to my hon and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Wylie)—I should like to thank the Solicitor-General for his full, courteous, and apparently accurate description of the contents of these Regulations which I am sure gave satisfaction and pleasure to every hon. Member of the House who heard him. I have no intention to press him for further and better particulars.
I should like to make one or two brief comments. The House should take note of the fact that by applying legal aid to proceedings which are partly in respect of defamation, the Regulations vary the Legal Aid and Advice Act 1949—a matter which we should not by Statutory Instrument undertake lightly and without full consideration. It was, however, envisaged that the Statute could be varied by Statutory Instrument, and it seems to be right to do that on this occasion.
My only other comment is that when I heard the Solicitor-General say that the cost would be very little, I thought that those were, perhaps, the famous last words of any Minister who might one day have to come before the House for a Supplementary Estimate. However, I wish the hon. and learned Gentleman well. I hope that he does not have to do so, although the sum that he named seemed to me to be not only small, but trivial.
Bearing in mind that maintenance order proceedings and opposed adoption proceedings are to be made available under the Legal Aid Scheme, it would be remarkable if the total sum were kept within the figure given by the Solicitor-General. Let us hope, however, that he is right. I am sure that we are grateful to the Advisory Committee for recommending this further extention of legal aid. We naturally give it our blessing.

8.51 p.m.

Mr. N. R. Wylie: I intervene only briefly to welcome the Scottish Regulations. The Solicitor-General put the position very clearly. There is no requirement in Scotland for the further provisions contained in the English Regulations because legal aid already applies extensively in the sheriff court.
The situation which at present arises, although only occasionally, is rather illogical, that a pursuer can come into court with the benefit in an action of legal aid. He is faced with a counterclaim involving issues of verbal injury. I will not go into the technical distinctions between the two; they are rather fine. In respect of the counterclaim he is deprived of legal aid to defend himself. That, I think, was an oversight in the earlier Regulations. This is clearly something which should be put right.
I understand, that as the Solicitor-General said, the Law Society of Scotland entirely agrees with these proposals, and I generally welcome them. The only other thing that I would say is that, like my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton), I am rather surprised at the estimate of costs involved. I should have thought that as soon as questions of defamation arise, judicial expenses might be quite considerable. That, however, is not a matter for me to concern myself with at the moment.

8.53 p.m.

Mr. Michael Clark Hutchison: I should like to know from the Government Front Bench whether the Faculty of Advocates has recommended this alteration as regards Scotland and whether there have been any representations from the judges. Legal aid is becoming ever more expensive. I submit that perhaps it is not wise to have this extension. If the pursuer in Scotland can get legal aid in questions of defamation and the defendant cannot, might it not be better to put them both in the same category so that the pursuer does not get it to start with?

8.54 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Norman Buchan): I rise basically to acknowledge the welcome which has been given to the Regulations from


almost every source. In a curious sense, this is the second speech which I have made on this subject this evening.
In reply to the particular question which has been raised, the main subject of discussion on this matter was with the Law Society, which has welcomed this proposal. I understand that the Faculty of Advocates has not expressed an opinion, nor have the judges.
I do not think that the extension of legal aid will necessarily be seen quite so widely as has been suggested. The purpose of the Regulations is to close this loophole. In Scotland the verbal injury difference is a rather interesting one. One of the points on which it might arise is when a building is built on insecure foundations. That may interest the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Wylie).
With those brief comments, I again welcome the support which has been generally given to the Regulations.

8.55 p.m.

Mr. James Dempsey: I wish to raise two points in connection with the statement by my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General. I got the impression that my hon. and learned Friend said that, for the first time, legal aid might be available to persons who were contesting issues with the Ministry of Social Security concerning supplementary payments.
If that is so, I am anxious to be clear about the following. Does it mean that in a case where the Department of Health and Social Security legitimately seeks to recover certain moneys which have been overdrawn legal aid will be available for the person who is alleged to have overdrawn such moneys? This kind of thing happens week after week, and I am not too clear whether the Solicitor-General's statement means that such an individual will qualify for legal aid. This situation has arisen on a number of occasions, and it appears to me, having knowledge of the individuals involved, that if what the Solicitor-General has said means an extension of legal aid, it will be an abuse of the whole principle of the system.
I should like the Solicitor-General to explain whether the same principle will apply when a local authority attempts to recover money from tenants who have underpaid rents, and so on, or who have

overdrawn certain welfare allowances. Not being a legally-minded person, I am not clear on these issues, and I hope that the Solicitor-General will deal with the matters I have raised.
Turning now to the Scottish Regulations may I ask whether the Committee considered the possibility of extending legal aid not only to those who suffer verbal abuse but to those who suffer physical abuse as a result of assaults, which the moment could be dealt with in a magistrates' court where the legal aid scheme does not apply—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member cannot on this Motion consider other extensions which are not included in the Regulations.

Mr. Dempsey: May I ask the Solicitor-General whether the Committee considered extending the legal aid scheme, or whether it restricted it to this narrow sphere? Did the Committee provide any advice, any report or any documentary evidence which will influence the Solicitor-General in considering a more generous extension of the scheme? My hon. and learned Friend has been at great pains to say that this applies to magistrates' courts in England. He has not said whether it will apply to magistrates' courts in Scotland.
That is the aspect in which I am keenly interested, because it is an important problem for Scotland at the moment. I should be grateful if the Solicitor-General would advise me whether he is recommending the advice of the Committee in full, or whether he is recommending only that part of it which is acceptable to his Department.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member is finding another ingenious device for doing what I have already ruled out of order.

Mr. Dempsey: I am a modest type of chap. I never thought that I was ingenuous, and I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for that compliment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The compliment paid to the hon. Member was that he was ingenious.

Mr. Dempsey: Many a war has resulted from the definition of a word. We have a saying in Scotland that.


"We'll let that flea stick to the wall meantime".
I should like the Solicitor-General to clear up those matters, because they are being raised in other aspects of our Parliamentary activities and it would be extremely helpful if my hon. and learned Friend could advise me on this issue. He may, as a result, save his other colleagues from some additional vociferation on this subject in the near future.

8.59 p.m.

Mr. Buchan: I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey). Had I realised that he wished to speak, I should have waited until he had done so.
The Solicitor-General referred to a change in England and Wales. It does not apply to Scotland, because provision already exists there for anything which comes within the ambit of the sheriff court. There is therefore no change in that respect. If the matter could have been dealt with in this way, it will continue so to be.
My hon. Friend also asked to what extent the Solicitor-General took and considered advice on this matter. As this affects England and Wales, I advise my hon. Friend to look at the Seventeenth Report of the Lord Chancellor's Legal Aid Advisory Committee. In that report, the committee examines different points to see in which it should recommend an extension of legal aid. The Government have not accepted all its recommendations, one reason being the financial one. Finally, my hon. Friend mentioned an extension to the borough and J.P. courts. This was covered by the 1967 Act, but we have not yet implemented it by Order.

Mr. Dempsey: Would the Solicitor-General—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman cannot speak a second time.

Mr. Dempsey: Am I allowed to ask the Solicitor-General whether he will—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman cannot speak a second time.

Mr. Dempsey: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I asked the Solicitor-General some questions about supplementary payments and have had no

reply. May I ask him to give me a reply?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not a point of order.

9.3 p.m.

Sir Eric Errington: I did not have the pleasure of hearing the whole of the Solicitor-General's speech, but I wonder whether he gave any reason for this Statutory Instrument being, first, in the form of Regulations, and, second, followed by a schedule. My objection is that this is one of a series. Legal aid, particularly in criminal cases, is very complicated, and it is difficult for anyone to be certain that he has found all the Regulations which cover a particular point.
Although I do not object to this Measure as such, I should like these various Regulations, of which there are nearly a dozen, collated and fitted in with the Legal Aid and Advice Act, 1949. Otherwise, there is a grave risk, as I know from experience, of some Regulation being missed. The system by which these matters must be brought before magistrates, who are not experienced legal people, requires much more attention. I hope that an effort will be made to ensure that these Regulations are simpler and fewer, so that those who run may read.

9.5 p.m.

The Solicitor-General: If I may speak again, by leave of the House, I agree with the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir E. Errington). It is important that, so far as is practicable, these complex rules affecting legal aid should be available in a form which can be conveniently and compendiously consulted. This is precisely the objective with which this Measure deals in the first paragraph of the schedule.
As I explained, that paragraph does not deal with any new extension of legal aid created by this Instrument, but is set out for the purposes which the hon. Gentleman has in mind; that there is an advantage in collecting in one Instrument all the existing extensions made to legal aid since the 1949 Act. Thus, the answer to the hon. Member for Aldershot is that not only do we bear this sort of representation in mind, but we are implementing it in the Regulations.
My hon. Friend the Member for Coat-bridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey) asked


about supplementary benefits. The position in Scotland, as affecting legal aid under this head, is not affected by this Instrument, which seeks for England the position that proceedings under Section 23 of the Ministry of Social Security Act against persons who are alleged to have failed to maintain their dependants, where the dependants have claimed or have been paid benefit by the Commission, shall be eligible for aid. That is the objective which this Instrument has and which, by its language, it achieves.

Queston put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Legal Aid (Extension of Proceedings) Regulations 1969, a copy of which was laid before this House on 16th June, be approved.

Legal Aid (Extension of Proceedings) (Scotland) Regulations 1969 [copy laid before the House 16th June], approved.—[Mr. Buchan.]

SCOTLAND (GRANT-AIDED SECONDARY SCHOOLS)

9.7 p.m.

Mr. Ian MacArthur: I beg to move,
That the Grant-Aided Secondary Schools (Scotland) Grant (Amendment) Regulations 1969 (S.I. 1969, No. 506), dated 26th March, 1969, a copy of which was laid before this House on 10th April, be withdrawn.
These Regulations reduce by £94,000 the amount of Exchequer assistance provided for grant-aided schools in Scotland. There are 29 of these schools in Scotland, with about 20,000 pupils. In 1967–68 they received 52·5 per cent. of their income from the Exchequer grant, 41·6 per cent. from fees paid by parents, 3·4 per cent. from a number of local authorities which take up places in these schools, and the balance of 2·5 per cent. was provided by endowments and the like.
These schools provide the middle sector of education in Scotland, standing midway between local authority and wholly independent schools. One effect of the Instrument will be to reduce the proportion of income provided by the Exchequer, to increase the proportion paid by parents, and so to remove from some parents the possibility of sending their children to these schools.
This is the second of two Instruments introduced by the Government in the last 18 months, and I remind the House that paragraph 1 of this Instrument proposes that the Regulations should be taken as one with the previous Instrument of last year. If the two are taken together in this way they represent a cut of £130,000 a year in the amount of Exchequer assistance to Scottish grant-aided schools. This represents a cut of about 8 per cent.
The first Instrument introduced a cut of £36,000. This second, the target of our Motion, introduced the larger second cut of £94,000. This large cut is to come into force during the current year, 1969–70. Its full weight, therefore, has not yet fallen on these schools, but it will do so very soon. It will be a continuing burden because this is not a cut for a single year; it imposes a new and lower fixed level of Exchequer assistance which will continue year after year. The grants which aid the grant-aided schools are being cut and then frozen. The electorate is becoming conditioned to squeeze and freeze. These are the chilly realities of Socialism. To impose squeeze and freeze simultaneously and to impose them on schools redoubles one's faith in the quality of Socialist mismanagement.

Mr. A. Woodburn: I feel a little confused. I cannot understand the position. I understood that on the question of abolishing fees in local authority schools the Opposition protested that parents were not allowed to pay. Now the hon. Member seems to be protesting that parents will be allowed to pay.

Mr. MacArthur: I will gladly debate the Education (Scotland) Bill with the right hon. Gentleman if he wishes. I hope what I say will help him greatly. He is misunderstanding what I am declaring now, just as he misunderstood what we declared on that Bill.
This Instrument has a shabby history which dates from December 1967. Earlier in 1967 the Secretary of State decided to refer consideration of the rôle of the grant-aided schools to the Public Schools Commission. That consideration has been proceeding, and I hope that it may be in order for the Under-Secretary to make some passing reference in his reply to let us know when the Commission's report on those schools can be expected. In


view of this decision, surely the proper and logical course for the Secretary of State to follow, if he were genuinely open-minded about the rôle and financing of these schools, would be to await the findings of the Commission and to hold his mind open and impartial in the meantime, but impartiality in education is not the Secretary of State's strongest point. He has referred the grant-aided schools to the Public Schools Commission and asked for its judgment, but before it could begin considering the evidence he pronounced the sentence.
On 5th December, 1967, the Secretary of State announced in a Written Answer that as a result of the consideration by the Commission, a ceiling should be imposed on the amount of grant available. The ceiling, he said, would be at the 1967 level. That back-to-front justice was bad enough, but worse was to follow. Within six weeks of this assurance being given it was broken. On 19th January, 1968, the Secretary of State told the House that after all the 1967–68 ceiling was not to apply. The Chancellor had told him what to do. The economy cuts of that month would force the level down by £36,000 in 1968–69 and by a further £94,000 in 1969–70. The second of these cuts is provided for in the Measure now before us.
I expect that the Under-Secretary will ask why if we wished to defend the grant-aided schools—as indeed we anxiously wish to do—we did not pray against the first Order which introduced the lower first instalment of the two cuts, but are opposing this second Measure. There are three reasons. First, the original announcement was part of a range of cut backs and adjustments within the total educational programme. They were part of the price which the country had to pay for the Government's bungling mismanagement of the economy, a price which has to be paid by all sections of the community. Second, the Government, with a nice sense of timing, laid the Statutory Instrument during the Recess when Members of Parliament were all away. I make that comment almost in passing, and it is more of a rebuke than a reason.
The third point is by far the most important; and it provides the reason for our Prayer against these Regulations. It

is that the first Statutory Instrument was laid against a background of economic mismanagement. Since then a threatening political motivation has come to light and we fear that it is this political objective rather than the economic objective which shapes the Government's intentions in the Statutory Instrument.
We see this second Statutory Instrument more as a political than an economic threat to grant-aided schools. We are, therefore, praying against it so that we can discover the real nature of the Government's intentions and the real reason why these large cuts are to be made. Is this Statutory Instrument purely an economic measure, or does it represent the beginning of a deliberate and planned attack on grant-aided schools?
The Government's hostility towards grant-aided schools which we believe exists in this Statutory Instrument first became apparent when the Secretary of State, having referred the question of grant-aided schools to the Public Schools Commission, decided to freeze the level of grant. Then came the cuts, of which this Statutory Instrument imposes the larger. These were seen at first in economic terms—the imprint of the Chancellor's clumsy hand. Now we suspect they were the second stage of a long-term plan for the erosion and suppression of these schools.
Without the grant-aided schools and the local authority fee-paying schools choice in education in Scotland would be effectively restricted to the very few parents who can afford to send their child to a totally independent school. The belief that the Statutory Instrument is politically motivated was strenghened by the terms of the Education (Scotland) Bill and the tone of the debates on that Bill. That Bill was an open attack on the local authority fee-paying schools in Glasgow and Edinburgh. It was a contemptible attempt to abolish not only the fees, but the structure and nature of these schools, despite the courageous opposition of the local authorities, which refused to bend easily to the Government's will.
During the debates on the Education (Scotland) Bill we referred to this very Statutory Instrument. The debates showed the Government's narrow-sighted conviction that variety in the structure


of education should be removed, freedom of choice suppressed, and local opinion crushed. Over and over again we saw the Labour Party's hatred of independence in education and its blind insistence that selectivity is a sin.
This Statutory Instrument seems to us to be part of the whole process of Government circulars, speeches and actions which show their determination to impose on our country a single comprehensive system. This is why the local authority fee-paying schools are to be abolished. That, we suspect, is why this Statutory Instrument has been laid—to squeeze out the grant-aided schools. In time, the wholly independent schools, too, will come under renewed attack.
This is the charge which the Minister must answer frankly tonight, because only then will we be able to judge the real intent of this Statutory Instrument.
There is excellence in every form of education. The comprehensive schools, which are so much a part of the Scottish education tradition, will have an increasing rôle to play, and they will make a growing contribution to the outstanding quality of education in Scotland. But there is room and need for other systems also. The variety in our schools system produces the excellence which we should cherish. It also provides the choice which a free society demands. Surely variety, excellence and choice in education are virtues which wise government should protect.
If the Statutory Instrument is viewed in isolation, it might be seen in purely economic terms as the imposition of an additional cost on grant-aided schools and thus an unwelcome extra burden on them and on parents. Recent developments in the Government's education policy, however, have given it an uglier complexion. We cannot agree to the Regulations unless the Minister can assure us that they are no more than one of the marks of the Government's economic incompetence. We cannot agree to them unless he can assure us simply and frankly that the Government support the grant-aided schools, recognise and applaud their rôle in the education structure, and will allow them to continue unimpeded by further Regulations of this sort.

9.20 p.m.

Mr. Hector Monro: I warmly support the criticism by my hon.

Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) of the Government for reducing the financial assistance to grant-aided schools in the current and subsequent years. I want to look briefly at the situation in general, and then to look at it in a little more detail as it affects two schools mentioned in the Statutory Instrument that are in my constituency: St. Joseph's College and the Benedictine Convent School.
Support has been whittled down in the past two years. The logic of the Secretary of State's attitude seems strange, in view of the Report "Education in Scotland in 1968", Cmnd. 3949, published a few days ago. The Secretary of State says in the paragraph on grant-aided schools on page 22 that he is delaying any increase in grant because the Newsom Report on the public schools, extended to cover grant-aided schools, has not yet been published. The report says some complimentary things about grant-aided schools, but also indicates that the matter has been referred to the Newsom Commission in more detail. I understand that the second volume will not come out until later this year. It is wrong that the Secretary of State should have made these cuts before receiving the Newsom Commission's advice, because the Commission was set up specifically to inquire into the working of the grant-aided schools, and the Secretary of State is pre-judging the matter to the serious disadvantage of these schools.
The grant was cut by £36,000 in 1968–69 and by a further £94,000 this year, or £130,000 in the two years. My hon. Friend is very right to say that the full weight of the cut will be apparent to the schools' treasurers only in the coming months. While grants have been falling in the past two years, and the Government have been failing to support the schools to the extent that they should, the local authorities have been doing so. They have fulfilled their part of the bargain. According to the latest figures I have for Dumfries County Council, it was giving substantial grants to the two schools mentioned. The Convent School, an important Roman Catholic school in South-West Scotland which is widely respected and rightly held in the highest regard in Dumfriesshire


and Galloway, is suffering serious financial repercussions from the Minister's action. The mother superior has told me that it finds it very difficult to continue the battle against the rising costs of staff salaries and scientific and other equipment. I have been to the school several times. No school makes more effort to help itself in the raising of funds locally, and this should be put on record. Its scholastic record is excellent. The Government should be helping this school in every way, not defeating the objectives by cutting the grant.
Every pound counts. The Minister may say at the end that the total grant which has been cut from the Convent School is not significantly high, but, in relation to its budget, I think that it is a very serious cut.
I now turn to St. Joseph's College in Dumfries, which has a fine tradition known throughout the United Kingdom. It is the senior Roman Catholic secondary school for South-West Scotland. I hope that the Minister realises this, because it is of extreme importance. It receives boys from seven primary schools throughout the area and, indeed, many boys from outwith South-West Scotland. This is all to the good. Indeed, it provides important boarding facilities in this part of Scotland both for boys whose parents are too remote from the school and for boys whose parents are abroad.
It is also important that the Minister should realise that the continued existence of secondary education for Roman Catholic children in South-West Scotland depends at the moment on St. Joseph's College. The local education authority has agreed that it fits into the pattern of education in South-West Scotland.
I hope that the Minister realises that this fine school, doing such magnificent work, does not receive grants for capital expenditure. The local authority agrees that it has provided services of the highest value. When we realise that the capital cost of this school is probably of the order of £180,000, just think what a saving it has been to the local authority in the first place. It is important that the Minister should try to evaluate the worth of such a school both in financial terms, which seems to be his only approach at the moment, and in terms of pure education.
St. Joseph's College, like the Convent School, is fighting rising costs. Indeed, the brothers who teach there often return part of their salaries to help. But no boy is ever turned away because his parents cannot afford the fees. It is not on record that anyone has ever been turned away on financial grounds. But St. Joseph's College, like the Convent School, makes a massive effort to raise funds. Former pupils and friends helped to finance the new buildings. The Minister may say that last year there was a slight underspending; but this was on account of teacher shortage and for no other reason. The school is having to skimp on library and technical equipment and sports facilities.
I will not go into the more general points on which my hon. Friend touched, but the backgrounds of the parents of the boys who go to St. Joseph's are extremely varied. I expect that the Minister has seen the report that went to the Public Schools Commission showing that the boys come from every walk of life.

Mr. Speaker: Order. We are not discussing whether the schools should be grant-aided. This Regulation merely reduces the grants that are made. The hon. Gentleman must talk about the reductions.

Mr. Monro: It is important to point out that if the grants are reduced the schools will not be able to continue to provide the facilities that are now available.
I should make it clear that the grant affects only Scottish boys whose parents are resident in Scotland. The boys who come from outwith the area pay the full fees, so it does not apply to them.
In view of what I have said about the great importance of these two grant-aided schools, the Minister should think again because of the financial hardships that both schools will have to overcome if the Regulation goes through. The cut is very severe in terms of the budgets of both schools. There may have to be a reduction in the services and facilities that they provide if the Minister takes this very hard attitude to cuts in educational expenditure.
I warmly support my hon. Friend in what he has said, and I hope that the House will reject the Regulation.

9.30 p.m.

Mr. Donald Dewar: These are Regulations to reduce Exchequer support for grant-aided schools. They will be greeted in many quarters with widespread indifference, and in certain others they will be less than popular. That is understandable and inevitable. My own view is clear. The Regulations are fair. I do not understand and Jo not see why, at a time when we are constantly invited to contemplate fresh attacks on public spending in almost every quarter, this collection of schools should in some way be exempt from the overall atmosphere of stringency.
I could not accept the half-explanation offered by the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur). Hon. Members opposite are constantly baying for new sacrifices in public expenditure. To call for the exemption from those sacrifices of schools in this narrow sector is hardly equitable. I suppose that it is unreasonable of us to expect the Opposition to think through the consequences of their own slogans which are so freely bandied about, but at least, if we do demand widespread cuts in public expenditure, surely we must accept that, on occasion, interests which may be close to ourselves are going to be hit, and we should grin and bear it.

Mr. John Brewis: But the Government are always saying that cuts are not being made but programmes are only being slowed down or rephased. Here is not only a cut but inflation at the same time which is reducing the money of these schools still more.

Mr. Dewar: I do not know what my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will say but I accept that there has, first, been a level placed on the expenditure and, second, a reduction. That is undeniable. But what we are arguing about is whether this reduction is justifiable and whether it will affect the fabric of education in Scotland as we know it, and, if it does affect it, whether it will do so adversely.
The argument for this reduction could well appeal to the Opposition because it represents a transfer of expenditure from the public to the private sector and could be determined in terms of the doctrine, enunciated in Scotland recently in the context of another sector, of the dangers

of using public expenditure to subsidise private expenditure to provide services bought by the public.

Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot discuss the principle of whether there should be what the hon. Gentleman calls "public expenditure subsidising private expenditure". There are certain grants to grant-aided schools and the Regulations propose to reduce them to a certain extent and give the Minister discretionary power to vary the reduction. The hon. Gentleman must discuss that.

Mr. Dewar: I am sorry if I was infringing on your tolerance, Mr. Speaker. I was suggesting that the cutting of such subsidisation might have been regarded as an acceptable development in terms of the political philosophy we hear from the Opposition. I am disappointed that the squeal is so loud from hon. Members opposite when the shoe pinches.
There is one argument worth hearing on this, however. It is based on the difference in the systems north and south of the Border. We have 29 grant-aided schools in Scotland, and there are 179 direct-grant schools in England. It has been said on occasion, referring specifically to England, that this is not a dangerous or damaging cut because it will be merely the transfer of expenditure from the Treasury to the local authority and will not victimise parents in any way who have a child in such a school.
This point was made recently in an article in The Times Educational Supplement of 11th June, 1969, by John Marshall, headmaster of Robert Gordon's, when he pointed out that this is not true in Scotland. In England it is perfectly clear that on the latest figures 11 per cent. of all children have fees partly or wholly remitted—in other words, met out of public funds—and something like 64 per cent. of all pupils in direct grant schools have their fees paid entirely by the local authorities—

Mr. Speaker: Order. With respect, the hon. Gentleman is straying from the Regulations.

Mr. Dewar: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker. I am trying to point out that there is an important distinction between England and Scotland in this way and that it is fair to say that while in England, because of the kind of system whereby compulsory places must be made available to


local authorities—25 per cent., with an optional 25 per cent. over and above—there is an argument for saying that individual parents will not be victimised. The kind of main argument used by the Opposition, that the person whose finances only marginally allow a child to go to a school would be affected, is not valid, because he will not be hindered in any way.
It is true that in Scotland the cut will fall upon the schools and presumably will be passed on to the parents. There is a fair argument against a cut in Scotland as against the cut that might have been inflicted in England. If we look at the kind of support that grant-aided schools get in Scotland and compare it with the direct grant schools in England it will be seen that granted-aided schools in Scotland are extremely generously treated and that the kind of cut now being inflicted on these institutions in Scotland is very small, in proportional terms, never mind global terms, as against the £1·8 million cut that has been imposed on their counterparts south of the Border.
We also have to remember that these schools get exemption from S.E.T. and there are the mandatory de-rating provisions under the 1962 Local Government (Financial Provisions etc.) (Scotland) Act in Section 4(1). It is not possible to say that this is the ungenerous treatment of a hostile Government, at least in a prima facie sense. This very argument, that the burden will fall not on the realignment of public funds but upon parents, in a sense underlines the enormous weakness of the position of direct grant schools in Scotland because they do not, at the moment, provide the kind of service provided in England.
They do not produce that great range, with one or two honourable exceptions, and it may be that one of them is in the constituency of the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro), or the substantial block of places available to local authorities. For that reason alone they are in an exposed position. If I was a protagonist of grant-aided schools in Scotland I would be anxious to try to come to an agreement, to make a rapprochement, with the public authorities, to build myself into the State system so that I could say that I provided

that kind of service, that I had a real element of meritocracy.
By and large this is not the situation in Scotland, and it is fair that some measures should be taken, that there should be some further trimming of the financial support available, when we consider how very generous it is compared with that offereed in other parts of the United Kingdom.
There has been much talk about the long and honourable records of individual schools, and I do not want to deprecate that record. I feel that this is a privileged sector of education; it is an élitist sector which inevitably and by definition, however much it may be altered, will always depend upon the principle of selection. Therefore, it is not compatible, and cannot be compatible, with the development of comprehensive education.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is doing what I asked him not to do. We are not debating grant-aided schools. We are debating the reduction of a grant to grant-aided schools.

Mr. Dewar: I accept that. It seems to me that the Opposition's case is that this will be the last straw that breaks the camel's back, that it may put individual institutions into bankruptcy or into some genteel state of voluntary liquidation. If it is the case of the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire that the whole thing is a monstrous political conspiracy to assasinate those schools, then to some extent we have to deal with the merits, not in depth but in passing, as well as merely the arguments as to how big a slice should be taken off the grant. I will not pursue that matter. My view about it is on record, and we have rehearsed these arguments before. We cannot have a very large selective sector creaming off from the State system. It destroys the possibility of a real intellectual and social cross-section in the State education system. We cannot allow it to continue for ever. At some point these schools, which are in limbo between the State system and the independent system, will have to rationalise their position and make their choice.
I found very strange the argument at which the hon. Member for Dumfries hinted in passing, that parents who send


their children to these kinds of schools are saving public money because they are paying through taxes for a place which their children do not take up. This is a most remarkable argument which is often advanced by hon. Gentlemen opposite, but it does not apply only to direct grant schools. It is a very dangerous argument that, wherever private services duplicate those offered from the proceeds of taxation in the public sector, someone who opts out of the public sector should have part of his expenses in the private sector met by the State. It would mean that the man who paid taxes for the Health Service but went to a private consultant could expect the State to pay part of the consultant's fees. This is a most peculiar and dangerous argument which cannot be taken in isolation, however charmingly it is put by the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Brewis: Would the hon. Gentleman, therefore, accept that the independent public schools are perfectly all right under the Socialist principle?

Mr. Speaker: Order. Whether they are all right or not, they come into this discussion only as far as the grant which is being paid to them is reduced by this Statutory Instrument.

Mr. Dewar: I realise that I must not be tempted to go too far, Mr. Speaker. Obviously different factors enter into the argument, I shall be delighted to argue the point with the hon. Gentleman on another occasion.
It has been said by the hon. Members for Perth and East Perthshire and Dumfries that it is wrong for the Government to go too hard on this problem, that we are waiting for Newsom and that no action should be taken until the Newsom Commission has reported and its report has been digested and, presumably, reconciled with the developments in the State education system and in independent schools. All that I can say is that the Newsom report may well be a bit of a weary anti-climax. I hope that I am wrong.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I see nothing about the Newsom report in these Regulations.

Mr. Dewar: A major plank of the Opposition's case has been that no action should be taken until the Newsom Report

has been received. However, I will not persist with the point. I believe that the Newsom Commission will almost certainly recommend that the Scottish direct grant schools should be brought into line with the English direct grant schools as a minimum, because the English direct grant system is what it has proposed in essence for the independent section.

Mr. Speaker: Order. If they are to be brought into line, it will be done by another Statutory Instrument.

Mr. Dewar: If these Regulations equalise the State support given on either side of the Border, it seems to me that they are preparing for the Newsom report.
I welcome the Regulations on two main grounds. First, it is right and equitable in the present financial climate that the cuts should be shared and that some of the burden should fall on these schools. Second, I welcome them in the very long term. I suppose that I am confirming, as a back bench Member, the worst fears of the Opposition Front Bench. I see the Regulations as a start in the process of forcing these schools to make the inevitable choice between whether they should integrate with the State system or opt for full independence and all the financial responsibilities of the status which they affect and which many people imagine they enjoy. Many people have said that the private sector cannot be squeezed—that if we carry out this cheeseparing operation all that we shall do is annoy and aggravate in order to save a few halfpennies of the totality of public expenditure without affecting the future pattern of education.
There are some interesting figures in the Newsom Report to which I want to draw the attention of the House. They are English figures but they show that the percentage of the total number of children in secondary schools had fallen from 9 per cent. to 5·5 per cent. in 1967. That is not surprising, because there has been an enormous increase in the number of children staying on in State schools. Taking 14-year-olds, we find that there has been a similar phenomenon, and that the figure has fallen from 8 per cent. or 47,000—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The reduction in respect of the grant-aided schools specified in the Schedule will not affect the


figures that the hon. Member is talking about for England.

Mr. Dewar: That is possibly so, Mr. Speaker. My contention is that the squeezing which is clearly the result of a general recognition of the increasingly high standard in the State section will be given an added shot by these Regulations, by the kind of reduction that the House is debating, from 47,000 or 8 per cent. down to 37,000 or 5·8 per cent. for the 14-year-olds in 1967. That is a good trend and a socially justified trend. Regulations on those two major grounds are helpful ones, which will be widely welcomed by the House.

9.47 p.m.

Mr. Michael Clark Hutchison: My speech will be very short. In my view the Regulations and their reductions have been introduced simply because the Government do not like this sort of school. I should like to know how these figures were arrived at, and who thought them up. Was there any consultation with the schools themselves? Secondly, I should like to know how many of these schools will be put out of business as a result of these reductions, in the Government's estimation. Thirdly, I see that the Secretary of State may have power to come to the rescue of a school which gets into difficulties. What schools do the Government have in mind?

9.48 p.m.

Mr. Esmond Wright: I am sure that I should incur your displeasure, Mr. Speaker, if I sought to reply to the speech of the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Dewar). I preface my remarks by congratulating you upon reducing the hon. Member, if only for a moment, to speechlessness.
I think I shall be in order if I say at the outset that I speak with a certain vested interest, since I am a governor of one of the schools mentioned in the Regulations and have another in my constituency. I trust that the three schools that head the list mentioned will take note of the early remarks of the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South, because those remarks are very pertinent to the situation in which those schools find themselves.
I shall not follow the hon. Member into the broader aspects to which he referred. Further, I shall not raise the point

—because it was admirably stated by my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur)—that the Regulations narrow the freedom of choice of parents. I shall not develop the point that it threatens the academic integrity of some old and important schools.
I want to make five points to show why Regulations represent a thoroughly discreditable piece of educational propaganda—to use the words of the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) speaking in a seated position about half an hour ago. I believe that these are bad Regulations. [Interruption.] I suggest that the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire should take note all the time.
These are bad regulations, first, because the consequence will be a sharp and permanent increase in fees in the 29 schools mentioned in the Schedule. One must remember that this has happened twice, as my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire mentioned, £36,000 a year ago and £94,000 this year. It happens to schools which it is perhaps slightly inaccurate for my hon. Friend to say have endowments of 2½ per cent. The figures show that the 2½ per cent. endowment is based heavily on the older schools on the list, such as Hutcheson's Schools in Glasgow and the Merchant Company Schools in Edinburgh. Some schools have no endowments whatever, and the burden resulting from the cut will be shifted on to the fees paid by parents, as the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South, who has wisely left the Chamber, pointed out. That is my central point.
Secondly, I wish to reinforce what my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro) said, that many of these schools have no capital or maintenance funds. Three of them, Craigholme, Laurel Bank and Westbourne in Glasgow, splendid schools as they are, each having approximately 600 pupils, are converted houses. Some are schools which are 50 or 60 years old, so that capital and maintenance funds have to be provided by parental contribution. It is therefore important to remember, when one hears about the lavish way in which educational expenditure is disbursed in these days, that no such resources are available to these schools.
I would, for instance, were I not likely to be curbed by you, Mr. Speaker, ask how much money has gone into Glasgow schools' television in the last two years. I guess that it is well over—

Mr. Speaker: Order. If the Minister answered, he too would be out of order.

Mr. Wright: I realise that I would be out of order were I to put it in that form. I am simply demonstrating the point that no such resources, local or parental, are available to these schools.
May I take up the point made by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South? He drew the customary comparison between the 179 direct grant schools in England and Wales and the 29 mentioned in the Schedule. No such comparison can be sustained. As he revealed, 75 per cent. of the fees paid in those 179 English schools come directly or indirectly from non-parental sources. They come overwhelmingly from local authority funds.
For sound historical reasons—and he is a student of history—the 29 direct grant schools in 1944 were not put on the same basis as the 179 in England. When Tom Johnston faced this possibility he saw that it was impossible to find schools in Scotland that could be made into twins of the 179—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has allowed the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Dewar) to tempt him a long way out of order.

Mr. Wright: I am merely making the point that no such comparison can be sustained for a reason which should be prominently in the mind of any good student of history educated in Glasgow University, even though he sits for Aberdeen.
One point which will be of interest to the hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger), is that Troon College in Ayr has a major contribution of about £43,000 a year in addition to the £76,000 paid to them this year as a direct grant—I am subject to correction on this. The consequence of these cuts will be that the good people of Ayr will have to pay more rates, and it might be said that that is one reason why it is a good thing that there is not an exact parallel between direct grant and grant-aided schools.
The fourth point I wish to bring to the attention of the House is that there have been teachers' salary increases of about 6 to 6½ per cent. per year.
My hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire could have demonstrated that the first warning was that the ceiling imposed by the Government in September 1967 was based on the first term's expenditure by the schools. These were not the final figures on which the cut was imposed. They left out the teachers' salary increase. Therefore, as the years pass more and more money will have to be found to pay the teachers' salaries, and with obvious justice.
I come to my final point, which is central to the argument. It relates to teaching costs and is a fundamental point. Two years ago I made a somewhat superficial investigation into this matter, so perhaps my figures are 18 months out of date. Taking only Glasgow, I worked out that the cost of educating a child in the city schools in Glasgow was £130 a year and that the cost of educating a child at grant-aided schools in Glasgow was £129 a year.
Parents are prepared in the schools which are listed in the Regulations to make contributions varying between £70, £80 and £90 towards the £129. They are helping the taxpayer. It is a matter of freedom of choice. Of course, they want their children to go to these schools for all sorts of reasons, and I would not defend all the reasons that could be adduced. But if there is a reason for the cuts, if the argument is one of financial stringency, why not leave the system as it is and allow parents to make this contribution?
I warn the Minister—and there was a sounding of this in the speech of the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South—that if there is a long-term threat to schools of this type—and there is a long waiting list for all these schools—they could well move becoming totally independent of the State system. This would be the curious non-Socialist consequence of these thoroughly bad Regulations. These are cogent reasons for asking the House to oppose them.

9.57 p.m.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: In his opening remarks the


hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Dewar) admitted that there might be some injustice in these Regulations. After that statement one would have thought he might have abandoned his doctrinaire and absurd vendetta against private education. But as he developed his argument it became crystal-clear that he fully supported the Regulations, which he regards as a means by which slowly and surely schools of this kind can be abolished.
I object to the Regulations because their precise effect is quite clear. The money involved is a substantial sum to the schools concerned, it will certainly be substantial to those who have to bear it, but it is a tiny sum in relation to the amount which the Government spend on education and in relation to all the other responsibilities of the Government. The Regulations, taken together, amount to about £130,000. Although it may not be a large sum in relation to total Government spending, it will have a marked effect on the fees charged in these schools.
If there were any dissatisfaction about the schools as they are at present organised, it might be some justification for wishing to bring about a change by cutting grants. But I do not believe the Minister would suggest that these schools are in any way deficient or that they fail to perform an educational purpose. Far from the Regulations representing just a cut of around £100,000, when one considers the rising costs of providing education in these schools and the increase in teachers' salaries, then in relation to the total share of cost the Regulations will put a disproportionate burden on the parents.
Let us consider precisely what will happen as a result of the Regulations. There will be two obvious effects. One is that serious hardship will fall upon the parents of children who are already at these schools—parents who put their children into these schools on the assumption that there would be a certain level of expenditure for them, with perhaps a rise of a small order. In the Glasgow schools covered by the Regulations there has been a substantial rise indeed over the last four years. The parents have been warned that because of these Regulations and the previous provisions there will be a further substantial rise.
I ask the Minister, if he insists on going ahead with the Regulations, whether there is a way in which—

It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That the Proceedings on the Motion relating to Education (Scotland) and the Architects Registration (Amendment) Bill may be entered upon and proceeded with at this day's Sitting at any hour, though opposed.—[Mr. Concannon.]

SCOTLAND (GRANT-AIDED SECONDARY SCHOOLS)

Question again proposed.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: If the Minister insists on going ahead with the Regulations, has he had regard to the problems and the hardship of parents who are faced with the choice of making a big sacrifice or taking their children away from the schools?
Whenever anything like these Regulations has been brought forward by the Government, they usually back it up by saying that they have made an assessment, inquiry or survey to ascertain the effect. I wonder whether the Government have made any inquiries about the effect which the Regulations will have on the children who are at the schools, who may have enrolled at the age of 8. 9, 10 or 11 some years ago and whose parents now find a substantial increase in the costs. Can the Minister give examples of how fees have risen in the last four years and what effect this will have on fees in future?
It is not, however, for that reason that I must oppose the Regulations. It is because of the effect which they will have on the intake of the schools over the next few years. The hon. Member for Aberdeen, South seemed to look on the Regulations with joy because he thought that in some way they might result in finishing or abolishing the schools.
Those of us in the big cities knows that the Regulations will not have that effect. Schools like Hutcheson's, Park and St. Aloysius will always be full, even if they put up the fees to £100 or £200. On the other hand, they will cease to


become academically-selective schools and will simply become class-selective schools. They will be schools at which only weathly parents can afford to enrol their children. This will destroy the whole character of the schools and the purpose for which they were set up.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member is again allowing the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Dewar) to tempt him out of order into widening the debate. In the Regulations we are discussing certain reductions.

Mr. Taylor: It is a fair point, Mr. Speaker, that that reduction will increase fees. Every increase in fees under the Regulations and the previous Regulations, and which will take place as a result of consistent Government policy, will gradually—admittedly, the Regulations will do it only gradually—reduce the social content of the schools.

Mr. Speaker: Order. It is only the present Regulations which we are discussing. I have allowed the hon. Member to refer to the previous Regulations. He cannot speak about anything ahead.

Mr. Taylor: The Minister will, I think, accept that, in however marginal a way, the Regulations will reduce the number of parents who can consider sending their children to schools of this sort. He must be aware that by not increasing the grants that effect will come. Certainly, reducing them will have that effect. Is that really what the Minister is trying to do?
Bearing in mind the arguments which the Minister and some of his colleagues recently put forward on the Education (Scotland) Bill, when he said that fees were wrong because they prevented some parents sending their children to these schools, what is the point of bringing forward Regulations which in another group of schools, in largely the same areas, will have exactly the opposite effect and reduce the social mix in these schools?
The Regulations are part of a move by the Government which is entirely wrong, because they will play their part in making schools which have been built up on a reputation and character of social mix become essentially schools limited to only a number of parents who can afford to send their children to them. The Regulations are entirely wrong for that reason.
There is no point in the Minister trying to hide the precise purpose of the Regulations. They are spiteful little Regulations to have another crack at the selective schools. The Minister is undermining the character and basis of these schools and the character of the children who attend them. He is undermining the system on which these schools have been based and organised. This is a silly, unnecessarily spiteful move, and I hope that the Minister will withdraw these Regulations. I hope that he will give these schools the opportunity of carrying on as they have done in the past, on the basis of a broad social mix, and will not try to bring about not their extinction by death by a thousand cuts—far from it—but a change in the character of these schools. This is what these Regulations will do, and I hope, therefore, that the Minister will withdraw them.
Can the Minister give us some indication of the effect which these Regulations will have on the parents of children who are at these schools now? If the Minister cannot do anything under these Regulations can he do anything to help those children who, as a result of these Regulations, may be faced with having their education broken, and having to change from one school to another at perhaps a very important stage of their education? If the Minister will not do something to help the children who are at these schools now, we can only consider these Regulations as an unnecessarily spiteful crack at these schools and all that they stand for.

10.6 p.m.

Mr. George Younger: These Regulations should be opposed, and opposed most fiercely, because they are not fair. They are grossly unfair in the way they have been drawn. I say that bearing in mind that because of the current economic situation and all the trials and tribulations it is correct that everybody should bear his part of these trials and tribulations which have been brought on by the Government.
Not by any stretch of the imagination can this calculation of the reductions being made be described as fair. The first reason for my saying that is that these cuts are to take place against a background of steadily rising costs throughout the whole of education, and not least in the costs of running these schools. Costs of everything are rising all the time.


Therefore, even if the Minister did not make any cuts, but kept the grant at the level it had been, the effect would still be to put a heavier burden on these schools.
The Minister is proposing substantially to reduce the amount of grant given to these schools. If he tries to make out that what he is doing is on a par with what is being done with the rest of the educational system, let him say which part of the education system is facing a net reduction in the face value of money spent on it this year or next. Let the Minister tell us which secondary school, or primary school, or education authority, is suffering a net reduction in the face value of money spent on education in the years to come.

Mr. William Hannan: It is not we on this side of the House but hon. Gentlemen opposite who are saying that cuts have been made in education expenditure and in the public service. The hon. Gentleman is now asking my hon. Friend to justify statements which hon. Gentlemen opposite are making.

Mr. Younger: The hon. Gentleman is not his usual perspicacious self, because, I am sure inadvertently, he has not understood my point. I was saying that these Regulations will reduce the amount of grant. If that is supposed to be fair to the grant-aided schools compared with schools generally, let the hon. Gentleman tell me which other schools are facing a cut in the money they receive.

Mr. Hannan: None.

Mr. Younger: The hon. Gentleman says "None". In doing so he proves that these Regulations are unfair. The hon. Gentleman's comment proves that the Minister is taking a harsher line with grant-aided schools than with other schools generally. By proving my point the hon. Gentleman has saved a lot of time, because I shall not now need to develop that further. The Minister can perhaps save a lot of time by telling us whether he agrees with what his hon. Friend has said, and whether he accepts that what his hon. Friend has said shows that these schools are being harder hit than other schools.
Then there is the argument that these cuts are necessary to save money. That

is a strange argument from the Government who, just a few weeks ago, were throwing money around, wasting £250,000 on abolishing fee-paying schools. There was no shortage of money then, yet now we are told that it is terribly sad but they have to take £130,000 in grants away from these grant-aided schools. The Minister seems to be a Jekyll and Hyde personality. At one time he has all the money in the world for undesirable changes which no one wants, and then we have this Order, which is desperately parsimonious, taking money from these schools, which no one has suggested are anything but first-class.
It is not good enough for the Minister to sit in St. Andrew's House and do his sums on a piece of paper, unfair though they may be. This kind of decision affects people who must pay the extra fees which will be necessary, and who are already saving the State large sums of money every year by paying a large part of their children's education. If any one of these children was taken away from his school, that would add about £100 to the Minister's budget for education. This is the Minister's problem. He is penalising these people. As these schools provide for a middle section in the educational system, it is these parents, who are getting the education which they happen to want, who will not, in many cases, be able to raise the extra money after these schools are forced by the cuts to become more and more dependent on fees and less on the community. These people will be forced to go into the completely independent sector.
That is why these cuts are unfair. They are unfairly calculated and fall unduly heavily on a section of the population which already suffers great financial burdens in every possible way because of the general economic troubles. That is why the Order should be opposed, because the economic arguments do not begin to hold water. The education argument is very undesirable as well, because it knocks yet another hole in the Scottish education system, which has worked so well for so long and has already been whittled away by the Government, who are now making life more difficult for the grant-aided schools. The Order is economic nonsense and educational eyewash, and that is why it should be opposed.

10.13 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Bruce Millan): I should start with a little of the background to the Order, because the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) raised one or two matters in that connection. It was announced on 23rd October, 1967, by the Secretary of State for Education and Science that the Government had decided to ask the Public Schools Commission to consider the problems of the direct grant schools in England and the grant-aided schools in Scotland, and its terms of reference were accordingly extended.
At the same time, because the grant-aided schools in Scotland have certain characteristics which they do not share with the direct grant schools in England, it was decided to set up a separate Scottish committee, appointed by the Secretary of State, to frame recommendations on the Scottish grant-aided schools. Two members of that committee are also members of the Public Schools Commission—Dr. Faulkner and Mr. Roger Young, who is the headmaster of one of the grant-aided schools concerned, namely, George Watson's in Edinburgh. There are a number of other members of the committee.
I was asked to state the Government's view on the future of grant-aided schools in Scotland. It would be completely improper for me to make any such pronouncement tonight, simply because we have asked this committee of the Public Schools Commission, and the Commission itself, to look into this matter. We expect that the report of the Commission on grant-aided schools and independent day schools may be completed towards the end of this year. However, that is a matter for the Commission and not one within my control.
When the Commission reports, the Government will take a view on the future of grant-aided schools in Scotland, but I do not think that it would be appropriate for me tonight, in view of the work that the Commission is doing—even if it were in order in this debate—to say anything more about the long-term future of grant-aided schools.
Subsequent to the announcement that the schools were being referred to the Commission, it was announced on 5th December, 1967, that the Government

had decided to impose a ceiling on the grant pending the recommendations of the Commission. The ceiling was put at the level of the estimated grant for the schools' financial year 1967–68. On 17th January, 1968, when the Prime Minister announced considerable savings in public expenditure, there were included in those savings reductions in the grant to the direct grant schools in England and the grant-aided schools in Scotland. The reductions amounted in total to £130,000 in respect of Scotland, and they were partly covered by the Regulations of 1968 and partly by the Regulations which we are debating tonight.
It seems proper, when the Government are making substantial cuts in public expenditure, that grant-aided schools should pay an appropriate contribution. It seems to me to go rather further than that, because I do not consider that the grant-aided schools, wherever they may be, are an economically under-privileged sector of Scottish education today. [Interruption.] Hon. Gentlemen opposite ask, "It is right that the grant-aided schools should bear a dispropionate part of the burden?" I am not necessarily accepting that description of what has happened, but I am happy to defend a situation in which the grant-aided schools would be expected to bear a disproportionate part of the burden because that would be a legitimate use of Government priorities in the educational sphere. [HON. MEMBERS: "Shame."]
As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Dewar) pointed out, hon. Gentlemen opposite should not be ashamed to accept that position, particularly when they are so anxious for us to cut Government expenditure. It is difficult to think of any sphere of Government expenditure that the Opposition are in favour of cutting although they make constant appeals to the Government to cut it, not just by £130,000, the modest sum we are discussing tonight, but by considerable sums indeed. The position which the Government have taken in this matter is clear, and I have no difficulty in defending it.
The original cuts in the 1968–69 grant were made in Regulations put through last year. I found completely unconvincing the defence by the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire of the Opposition's neglect to pray against the Order in 1968. The fact is that hon.


Members opposite negelected even to see, despite their tremendous preoccupation and passion for the grant-aided schools, that these Statutory Instruments were coming forward. Their ignorance was so profound that when the announcement was made earlier this year of these cuts a number of hon. Members opposite put down a Motion condemning us for introducing this surreptitiously by the backdoor, whereas the notice to the schools concerned had been given in a circular sent out as far back as February, 1968.
A great deal of concern expressed this evening is absolute hypocrisy on the part of hon. Members opposite. Comparisons have been drawn between the Scottish and the English positions. Obviously it would be out of order to deal with this in detail, but perhaps I might make one or two comments in view of the fact that comments have been made by hon. Members opposite on this matter in the debate.

Mr. Speaker: The Under-Secretary will remember that I ruled most of those comments out of order.

Mr. Millan: I shall try to deal with those which were not out of order.

Mr. MacArthur: I am reluctant to interrupt the Under-Secretary because we all very much want to hear what he is to say, but he is making quite incorrect remarks about the circumstances in which the first Regulations were introduced and viewed by us. If he refers to HANSARD and publications outside he will see that a wide range of comments were made by a large number of hon. Members on this side of the House at the time the announcement was made. It is inexcusable for the hon. Gentleman to make hollow and groundless statements of the kind he has just made.

Mr. Millan: The hon. Member has been here long enough to know that the way in which an Opposition criticises Regulations is to pray against them. The Opposition did not pray against the 1968 Regulations.
I was about to deal with the comparison between the Scottish and English systems. The two systems are not directly comparable. First, the English system involves the schools concerned making a certain percentage of places

available to the local authorities, whereas the Scottish system imposes no such obligation and most of the schools in Scotland make no places available for local authorities. Second, there is no direct grant paid in England in respect of primary pupils, whereas in Scotland a direct grant is made in respect of primary as well as secondary pupils, and this amounts to a considerable amount of the grant aid given by the Department. The reduction in England in the capitation grant was from £52 to £32 per pupil, which is a substantial reduction. The reduction in Scotland works out over the two years to between £6 and £7 per pupil.
The Scottish schools compared with their English counterparts are being extremely generously treated. The Scottish schools' revenue met by grant aid is very substantially greater than the percentage met by grant aid in England. The situation is not comparable, but so far as one can make comparisons the advantage lies with the Scottish schools. This is a matter which, no doubt, the Commission will draw attention to later in the year.
The original grant ceiling for 1967–68 was £1,681,000. The savings of £130,000 were made on that. The actual expenditure in 1967–68 was a little less than £1,681,000; it was £1,649,000, which means that the cut in 1968–69 was a real cut not of £34,000 but of only £5,000. Over the two years the cut is not in practice £130,000 but only £99,000. So it is not even as great as hon. Gentlemen have alleged.
Further, in view of these tremendous assertions of loyalty to grant-aided schools which we have heard from hon. Members opposite, it is enlightening to consider what happened in the last few years of Conservative government, in terms of the total grant to grant-aided schools. A comparison of the amounts paid by hon. Members opposite with those paid by the Labour Government causes me to be amazed at our generosity.
Between 1961–62 and 1962–63 the Conservative Government reduced the grant to grant-aided schools in Scotland. What is more, they reduced the grant again between 1963–64 and 1964–65. In the three years between 1961–62 and 1964–65, which is perhaps the last year


which we can genuinely attribute to hon. Members opposite, the increase in grant for all the school's concerned was only £58,000. The percentage of the schools' revenue represented by grant fell by 5 per cent. over that period.
Even with the reductions made in these Regulations, the grant in 1969–70 will be £1,551,000, which is £251,000 more than hon. Members opposite paid to grant-aided schools in 1964–65.

Mr. MacArthur: Now will the hon. Gentleman—

Hon. Members: Sit down.

Mr. MacArthur: —say something about costs?

Mr. Speaker: Order. We have had a placid debate. There is no reason why it should become turbulent.

Mr. Millan: I notice that the injection of a few facts into a debate always causes the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire to become hysterical.

Mr. MacArthur: If the hon. Gentleman wants to quote the facts completely, will he call attention to the other fact, which is that under the Labour Government costs confronting grant-aided schools rose between 1964 and 1967 by £500,000?

Mr. Millan: I am not sure why the hon. Gentleman talks about the costs of these schools having risen under the Labour Government. Of course costs have risen under the Labour Government, but in the three years between 1961–62 and 1964–65 under the Tory Government costs rose by more than £300,000 and grants rose by only £58,000, so there was a considerable percentage reduction in the amount of grant which hon. Members opposite paid to these schools in those years. Apart from all the argument from principle and philosophy to which we have been treated, the record of the last Conservative Government in help to grant-aided schools was a completely miserable one in the last few years of their government.
I was asked about some particular schools. Despite all the fuss and palaver which has been made about these Regulations, only two of the 29 grant-aided schools have made representations to the Government against them. They do not

include either of the schools in Dumfriesshire mentioned by the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro). Those schools have made no representations. As far as I know, there are no special financial difficulties in either of those schools. But if there are financial difficulties the schools can bring them to our attention, and Regulation 4(1) provides that in certain circumstances the Secretary of State can pay a higher grant if he feels this is justified. That answers the point made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Clark Hutchison).

Mr. Clark Hutchison: It does not answer my point. I understood what the Regulations meant. What I asked was how many schools, or which schools, the Scottish Office thinks will have to make use of this provision.

Mr. Millan: In the first instance it would be for the schools to tell us that they were in financial difficulties. Of the 29, only two schools have made representations. There is one very small school with special problems which I think relate only to that school. If it finds itself in special financial difficulties I shall be willing to look at the position of this school.
I think I have demonstrated a number of things this evening. The first is the justice of the modest reductions we have made in the grants to grant-aided schools. The second is the Opposition's failure even to understand the facts about their record in the matter, much less the facts about the present Government's record. I have also dealt with the longer-term future of the schools in my reference to the Public Schools Commission. The Motion is completely misconceived and misinformed. It does not deal with the realities of the situation.

Mr. James Davidson: I apologise for missing the earlier part of the debate. Can the Minister tell me whether the reductions to the individual schools are balanced to any extent by the proportion of local authority students which the schools admit? In other words, where the schools admit a high proportion, as in the case of Robert Gordon's in Aberdeen, which I believe admits about 50 per cent. local authority students, has the grant been proportionately less reduced?

Mr. Millan: Robert Gordon's does not admit any local authority pupils. It has no arrangements except through a foundation, but it is not part of the local authority system. There are only a few such schools in Scotland that work closely with the local authority system, none of them in Edinburgh or Glasgow. A few schools, like Morrison's Academy in Crieff, and the one my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) mentioned, Marr College. All these matters are taken into account in deciding the grant paid to particular schools.

Mr. MacArthur: The hon. Gentleman, who is proving so selective in his facts tonight, should have his attention called to the fact that Robert Gordon's College received £3,250 in fees from the local authority in 1967.

Mr. Millan: Compared with the £95,335 it receives in the terms of the Regulations that is very small beer.
The Opposition's Motion is misconceived and completely uninformed. For the reasons I have given, I ask the House to reject it.

Question put and negatived.

ARCHITECTS REGISTRATION (AMENDMENT) BILL

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

10.35 p.m.

Mr. Arnold Shaw: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I do not propose to keep the House for any length of time. There is little to be added to the arguments I put forward on Second Reading. The Bill simply corrects an anomaly which has arisen from Section 14 of the Architects Registration Act, 1931.
I also remind the House that the Bill substantially widens the scope whereby the funds of the Architects Registration Council of the United Kingdom might De more usefully employed in the advancement of education in architecture. The Bill had a remarkably swift passage in Committee and I hope that the House will accept it on Third Reading.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

BRITISH AIRPORTS AUTHORITY CONSTABULARY (MR. J. S. TAYLOR)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. McCann.]

10.36 p.m.

Mr. Roy Roebuck: I welcome this opportunity to raise on the Floor of the House the grievance of my constituent, Mr. John S. Taylor, of 45, Bromefield, Stanmore, against the Airports Authority police at Heathrow Airport, London. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Board of Trade, for being present to hear my representations, and I hope that he will be able to bring relief to my constituent and satisfy the House about the manner in which the airport police will carry out their duties in future.
This is a case which not only involves injustice to my constituent, who has been treated disgracefully by the authorities at London Airport, but raises wide issues about the administrative control of the airport police and the protection of the citizen against arrogant abuses of power by airport constables at all Airports Authority airports.
I shall show that Mr. Taylor, a taxi driver, was harassed, abused and assaulted by a constable in plain clothes after asking, quite properly, in entirely understandable circumstances, to see the constable's police identity card. I shall show that those in authority over the constable failed to exercise a proper degree of supervision and failed to investigate Mr. Taylor's subsequent complaint about his treatment in a manner which commands public confidence.
I shall show that Mr. Taylor was denied meaningful assistance by the Metropolitan Police, to whom he turned for help. I shall also show that he was led to believe by the airport police that there would be a hearing into his complaint at which he would be present, that there was no such hearing and that he merely received an ungrammatical letter couched in the language of "double speak".
On the evidence I shall put to the House, it is legitimate to draw the conclusion that the airport authorities have

tried to hush up this matter. If that is so, then I hope that this debate will give them a better understanding of the facilities which are open to the citizen to seek to have his grievance against powerful forces ventilated in this House through his Member of Parliament.
The case came to my notice on 28th April last, when Mr. Taylor wrote to me in the following terms:
As a member of your constituency I would like to bring to your attention an incident which took place at London (Heathrow) Airport on 26th April 1969 at approximately 4.15 p.m. concerning a police constable ' Hurley' of the British Airports Authority Constabulary, who whilst in plain clothes did (1) fail to produce his police identity card when requested, (2) order me to leave Heathrow Airport without giving any reason whatsoever, and (3) did physically assault me whilst in the waiting room of the British Airports Authority Police Station at Heathrow. The situation occurred as follows:
On the aforementioned date I was standing with my taxi cab, which was third on the rank, at No. 2 Building when I was addressed by a man in plain clothes whom I had never seen before, and asked why I was not wearing my badge (at the time in question I was dressed in shirt and trousers, the badge being attached to the belt of my slacks and plainly visible). I asked the man who he was, to which he replied, 'I am a police officer.' I pointed out to him that my badge was being worn and then asked him to produce his identification card. He refused to do so and then to my astonishment ordered me to leave the airport; I saw that there was a uniformed sergeant in the vicinity and I asked him to come over and clarify the position. The sergeant informed me that the man was a P.C. Hurley, but still no warrant card was produced. I was then asked by the plain clothes man for the copy of my cab driver's licence and told that if I refused to give it to him I would be arrested. I replied to the uniformed sergeant stating that if he, the sergeant, wished to see the copy I would show it to him or produce it at the police station but not to a man who claims to be a police officer and fails to produce any form of identification. Hurley still wanted to arrest me but the sergeant managed to persuade him to get into the back of my cab so that I could produce the copy of my licence at the police station.
The journey was uneventful and on arrival I asked the desk sergeant if I could see a senior police officer, to which he replied that I should go into the waiting room where he would attend to the matter. Whilst standing half in, half out of the door, the man since identified as P.C. Hurley forcefully tried to push me in and said 'Get in there, you.' The desk sergeant then intervened and pacified Hurley, asked me if I would 'please take a seat' and then went away, re-appearing shortly with Police Inspector Gurney, to whom I narrated the episode which had previously taken


place and informed him that I intended to lay a complaint against P.C. Hurley. On terminating the interview I was yet again confronted by P.C. Hurley who cautioned me and said 'Anything you say may be' etc. etc. I asked him what the charge was and was told: (a) not wearing my badge; (b) refusing to show a copy of licence; (c) refusing to leave the airport when ordered.
Mr. Roebuck, sir, believe me, I left the airport in disgust that such a form of Nazi bullying and gangsterism is allowed to exist in England. I made straight for Edgware Police Station where I intended to lodge a complaint and was informed there that they could do nothing about this as in fact the airport police are a private body answerable only to the British Airports Authority.
Sir, I beg of you to use your position to try to get some form of action taken on my behalf as I find this situation not only disgusting, but, I must confess, more than a little frightening.

I remain, yours faithfully,

J. S. Taylor."

The House will agree that that is a most disturbing letter for an hon. Member to receive from a constituent.

I asked my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department to give the matter his attention, but he took the view that it was one which concerned the Board of Trade rather than the Home Office. To a great extent, of course, that is true, but in my submission it is also an issue which concerns the Home Office. The House will recall that Mr. Taylor stated that he complained to the Metropolitan Police at Edgware that he had been assaulted at London Airport, and was told, in effect, that they had no authority to intervene.
I cannot, in the absence of further argument, accept that interpretation of the duties of the Metropolitan Police. Mr. Taylor was complaining that he had been assaulted, and it is a convention, for obvious reasons—to prevent vendettas and people taking the law into their own hands—for such allegations to be pursued by the police rather than the victim.

It is true that the airport is private property and that by Section 10 of the Airports Authority Act 1965 the Authority has power to appoint constables to police its property, but is it really maintained that this precludes the Metropolitan Police from investigating any alleged breach of the law by airport constables at London Airport? What if one of them

committed a murder or took part in a gold robbery? I hope that the House will be given some clarification of this important point.

I am happy to say that, on the receipt of my general inquiry on Mr. Taylor's behalf, my hon. Friend the Minister of State at the Board of Trade sent me a courteous letter on 9th May, stating that the Airports Authority police were already looking into the matter. He added:
I have asked the Authority to let me know the result of their inquiries and to ensure that you receive a copy of their reply to Mr. Taylor. I will write to you again at that time should further comment seem necessary.
That was an entirely satisfactory interim reply, of the helpful nature one associates with him.

However, when by 19th June I had heard no more, I telephoned my hon. Friend's private office and asked for consideration of the matter to be expedited. It most certainly was—and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for this—because the following day I received a letter by hand from the Deputy Chief Constable of the Airports Police. But my pleasure at the celerity of this response evaporated when I read the contents. This is what the letter said:

"Dear Mr. Roebuck.

I understand that Mr. William Rodgers, Minister of State, Board of Trade, promised that you would receive a copy of my letter to Mr. J. S. Taylor, of 45 Bromefield, Stan-more, Middlesex, who recently complained about the conduct of an officer of this constabulary.

A letter was handed to Mr. Taylor on Wednesday, 4th June, 1969, informing him of the results of the investigation, but the same day Mr. Taylor supplied the names and addresses of two additional witnesses in support of his complaint. These witnesses have now been interviewed, but their testimony does not materially affect the issue and I am arranging for Mr. Taylor to be told of this.

I regret the delay in concluding this investigation and enclose for your information, a copy of my letter to Mr. Taylor."

The contents of the letter dated 3rd June, 1969, to Mr. Taylor may well be regarded with some hilarity by students of the art of evasion. This is what it said:

"Dear Mr. Taylor,

Complaint against Police Officer

I refer to my letter of 29th April 1969 and to a subsequent statement which you made to Chief Inspector Mitchison of this Constabulary in connection with the above.

The matter has been investigated by a senior police officer and I have now received his report. From the evidence available, I am satisfied that the Constable discharged his duties to the best of his ability and without any intent to either assault you or cause offence.

However, it seems that he was somewhat over-zealous and that he did not discharge his duties with that degree of tact and courtesy which one would expect from a police officer otherwise you would not feel a sense of grievance at his actions. I, therefore, intend that he shall be very carefully briefed as to the manner in which he deals with members of the public in future.

I should like to take this opportunity of thanking you for bringing this to my notice and express the hope that the incident will in no way impair the good relations which have hitherto existed between you and members of the Police Service.

Yours faithfully,

Deputy Chief Constable."

Can the House be told what on earth is meant by the sentence
From the evidence available, I am satisfied that the constable discharged his duties to the best of his ability and without any intent to either assault you or cause offence."?
Apparently Mr. Taylor's complaint that he was assaulted and was caused offence is unchallenged. How can the Deputy Chief Constable's confidence in his man be reconciled with the statement that the constable is to be
very carefully briefed as to the manner in which he deals with members of the public in future "?
And what about the constable being in plain cloths and refusing to show his identity card? By what authority did the constable threaten to arrest my constituent? It is true that under Section 9 (6) of the Airport Authority Act, 1965, a constable may, without warrant, arrest people for having infringed the byelaws. But what byelaws had my constituent contravened? He was there pursuing his lawful employment, and his good faith is demonstrated by the fact that he approached the uniformed sergeant and offered to produce any form of identification should it be requested by a person who could prove that he was duly authorised to seek it. I hope that the Minister will agree that we cannot have people going around demanding information from citizens upon pain of arrest without first demonstrating their authority to make such a demand.

Following the receipt of the letters from the Deputy Chief Constable, I telephoned

my hon. Friend's office with a message to the effect that I was not satisfied that there had been an adequate inquiry. I also complained of the Deputy Chief Constable's delay in sending me a copy of his letter to Mr. Taylor of 3rd June. My hon. Friend, in a letter dated 25th June, offered the following explanation of the Deputy Chief Constable's dilatoriness:
I understand that, as a result of their inquiries, the Deputy Chief Constable wrote to Mr. Taylor on 3rd June, explaining the conclusion to which they had come. This letter was delivered by hand the following day, Wednesday. 4th June. However, Mr. Taylor then supplied the names and addresses of two additional witnesses in support of his complaint and very properly the Police decided that these witnesses should be interviewed to discover whether the previous conclusion would stand.
It was because of Mr. Taylor's action, which effectively re-opened the inquiry, that the British Airports Authority did not send me at the time—or send you—a copy of their letter to Mr. Taylor of 3rd June. Quite reasonably, they felt that you would be interested in their final conclusion. I understand that in fact they wrote to you on 19th June, saying that, having interviewed the witnesses, their testimony did not materially affect the issue. I have since received a copy of this letter to you.

I told Mr. Taylor of this over the telephone, and as a result of what he said about the conduct of the investigation I asked him to let me have a statement in writing. I have not time to go into the statement in full, but he said that he went to Heathrow Airport on the understanding that he would there be participating in some sort of hearing, but there was no hearing. There was only the letter dated 3rd June, which I have already read to the House. So far as the question of witnesses is concerned, it is my constituent's claim that he gave the names of the witnesses before he went to Heathrow Airport. There is here a complete conflict between what my hon. Friend is saying—no doubt on the basis of what he was told—and what my constituent says.

In his letter of 24th June my hon. Friend very kindly suggested that it might be possible for further talks with the Chief Constable or the Chief Executive of the Airport Authority, but I thought it more appropriate to come to the House and raise this matter. In this connection I draw attention to the Third Reading speech made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aviation on 22nd January, 1965, in col. 648 of the


OFFICIAL REPORT, which clearly indicated the House would continue to take an interest in all that went on with the Airports Authority.

I maintain to my hon. Friend that the House is entitled to know, as a result of all this, just how the police force at London Airport is run. How can a citizen with a grievance against an airport constable get it investigated satisfactorily? What advice has the Board of Trade given to the Authority? Will my hon. Friend, as a result of this case, give fresh advice?

A citizen with a complaint against a member of the Metropolitan Police or a police force run by a local authority has a statutory right to have his complaint investigated. Will the President of the Board of Trade now consider issuing a directive to the Airports Authority requiring it to establish a similar procedure?

I am proud of my constituent, Mr. Taylor, for bringing to attention an important matter affecting our civil liberties. He should be congratulated on refusing to be browbeaten. He has acted in the best traditions of our democracy in declining to be pushed around outside the law. I hope that my hon. Friend will agree to some further inquiries into the case.

One cannot consider the facts of this matter without wanting to sound the the warning, "Facilis est descensus averno…". I ask the Minister to recognise the potential dangers of the situation which I have described and take appropriate action. My view is that a shake-up at London Airport is needed.

It was, I think, Sir Ivor Jennings, in a popular work on the English constitution, who once distilled the Englishman's right not to be pushed around without lawful authority in the well-known phrase of the London bobbie, "Oi, you can't do that there 'ere." I ask my hon. Friend to say just that to the authorities at London Airport: "Oi, you can't do that there 'ere—and particularly to a constituent of the hon. Member for Harrow, East."

10.52 p.m.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. William Rodgers): My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr.

Roebuck) is assiduous on behalf of his constituents, and at no time more so than this evening. However, the rule for his constituent is the rule that we apply to all: did I feel that his constituent had a grievance, I would be concerned not only about the individual liberty of one man but about the liberty of all citizens.
With respect to my hon. Friend, he has jumped many fences in a short time. I confess that I am in some difficulty. Whereas he has spoken no doubt with the authority of his constituent behind him, he has also spoken with full freedom to disclose what his constituent has thought proper. By contrast I have wider obligations. I am not free to disclose what his constituent may have said, as I understand, in confidence. I am not free to describe in detail the inquiries which took place. Alas, I am not free to defend P.C. Hurley against the accusations which my hon. Friend has felt it necessary to make against him. I have obligations to issues of confidence and relations of a statutory kind. For this reason, I hope he will appreciate that if I do not say that I believe he has been wrong in all cases, I do not thereby necessarily agree with any of the statements which he has made.
While the issues which my hon. Friend has raised are important, I hope that no one will believe that Mr. Taylor was, as my hon. Friend said, harassed, abused and assaulted without better evidence than that brought forward by my hon. Friend. Certainly, in my view, he was not browbeaten. There was no Nazi bullying and gangsterism, which are the words used by my hon. Friend—

Mr. Roebuck: I did not use them. Those are the words of my constituent.

Mr. Rodgers: They are the words which my hon. Friend used, and upon which he put his own special authority. I am not prepared to let it go on record that I accept any of the remarks about P.C. Hurley or any other people involved.
I express my regret that, whereas my hon. Friend has been free, quite rightly, to raise this issue, he has put me in a position where I cannot adequately defend men whose character may require a proper defence. This is because of the relationships of confidentiality, which, within the rules of order, make it impossible for me to disclose the details of


the report which was made following Mr. Taylor's complaint.
I only hope, however, that the purpose of this Adjournment debate has been in part achieved. My hon. Friend has certainly laid matters before us that deserve looking at, even though there might not be an immediate reply to them. I can give him the undertaking now that if he has said things that require further investigation, I shall look into them and give him a considered reply. That having been said, I hope he feels that he has got some matters off his chest about which he feels very strongly.
My hon. Friend has been concerned with three related matters. First, he has complained, at least in passing, that the whole question has not been dealt with efficiently by the Board of Trade and, I think, by implication, by me and my own officials. Second, there was the substance of Mr. Taylor's complaint, particularly at the outcome of the investigation. Third, he posed the whole question of what we should now do, which involves the powers of the Board of Trade in relation to the British Airports Authority constabulary.
I need not proceed very far tonight on the first point. I should have been happy to discuss the question with my hon. Friend had this been his wish. But he felt that he wanted to bring the matter to the Floor of the House at an early date rather than examine with me in more detail whether justice has been done within the Act. My hon. Friend would agree that we can only require that individuals should work within our statutes. If the law is wrong, it is for my hon. Friend and myself to change it, not to blame others for acting on the law as it is. I say to him, with respect, that at times instead of complaining to me about the law and saying that he intends to change it, he has complained about those who have acted within the law according to the rules laid down by Parliament.
May I go back over a little of the history? At the time we received my hon. Friend's letter, which came to us via the Home Office on 2nd May, Mr. Taylor had written direct to the British Airports Authority. At that stage, when my hon. Friend got in touch with me, the Chief Constable was already having the matter looked into. Nevertheless, the Authority said to me that when its

inquiries were complete it would let me know the outcome and would ensure that my hon. Friend received a copy of its reply to Mr. Taylor. In my letter to my hon. Friend of 9th May I concluded that I would write to him again at the time I heard from the British Airports Authority should further comment seem necessary. I stress my final phrase, because I did not commit myself in that letter, as I think my hon. Friend thought, to write irrespective of the circumstances and whether or not any further comment appeared to be required.
This is how the matter stood when my hon. Friend telephoned my office on 18th June and then again on 20th June. At that stage, on 20th June, he had received a letter from the Deputy Chief Constable about which he has complained tonight. With that letter from the Deputy Chief Constable was a copy of the letter which he had written to Mr. Taylor, dated 3rd June. My hon. Friend apparently complained, not to me personally, at the time about the position and talked, as he has this evening, of a cover-up job. He said this evening that the British Airports Authority has tried to hush up this matter. This appears to have been his view from about 20th June. At that stage he said that if he did not hear from me further he would raise the matter on the Adjournment. I wrote to him, as he has now said, on 23rd June—

Mr. Roebuck: On 25th June.

Mr. Rodgers: On 25th June, my hon. Friend is quite right. On 23rd June the position was that I knew no more than my hon. Friend about the position. I was under no commitment to write to him unless further comment seemed necessary. But my hon. Friend was pressing me for something in writing. In other words, his position was the same as mine, but I had not undertaken to write to him unless there was a further development which it seemed proper for me to take up with him.
As my hon. Friend will know, I was in the House for most of Monday and Tuesday of last week. He and I voted five times in the Division Lobby. During that period, however, he did not raise the matter with me further. I felt at that time that it might have been courteous and helpful on his part had


he felt able to talk to me and sort out some of the complexities—

Mr. Roebuck: Come off it! I did not have the opportunity to see my hon. Friend on that occasion. Why does he not deal with the arguments which I have produced instead of handing out all this spurious nonsense?

Mr. Rodgers: If my hon. Friend will allow me to continue—there is little time left to me. I understood that he was concerned about the matter, and I should have been happy to discuss it with him. I was at the House at a time when he could have done so but, clearly, he felt it better to proceed as he has done. As he has said, I can have no complaint against him, and I have no complaint at the method he has chosen.
As my hon. Friend will appreciate—I know that he is fairminded—he has spoken tonight very firmly on behalf of his constituent. He has fulfilled his obligations. He must recognise, however, that I have obligations to some of those whom he has felt it right to criticise on this occasion and who, being public servants, are not in a position to reply to the comments which he has made.
The second main point with which my hon. Friend is concerned is the way that the British Airports Authority dealt with the matter. The Authority has, very fairly, sought to keep my hon. Friend informed.

Mr. Roebuck: Huh!

Mr. Rodgers: On 3rd June, the Authority wrote to Mr. Taylor, as my hon. Friend knows, and had it in mind to deliver that letter to Mr. Taylor to explain the outcome of its inquiry so far. It was at that stage, however, that Mr. Taylor produced the names of his additional witnesses. My hon. Friend said that Mr. Taylor claims that he put forward the names of the witnesses at an earlier date, but I have the letter to the Authority, dated 3rd June, in which Mr. Taylor said:
Please excuse the delay in my forwarding to you the names and addresses of the two witnesses below.
In other words, it was only on 3rd June that Mr. Taylor wrote to the Authority and supplied these further names about which the Authority could inquire.
Quite rightly, therefore, at that stage the B.A.A. wrote neither to myself nor to my hon. Friend, because it felt that the inquiry was still open and saw itself under an obligation only to inform myself and my hon. Friend when its inquiry was complete.
So we come to the letter of 19th June, when the Deputy Chief Constable said that he was arranging for Mr. Taylor to be told the outcome of the second stage of the inquiry. It was at that stage that arrangements were made for Mr. Taylor to be seen by an inspector who would personally explain to him the position.
I am satisfied that all the proper procedures which are laid down by statute and by regulation under the statutes have been followed. Mr. Taylor's inquiry has been looked into with very great care. I am sorry that my hon. Friend does not like the letter that the Deputy Chief Constable wrote to Mr. Taylor. I thought it was a courteous and helpful letter and a genuine attempt to explain the outcome of the inquiry to exonerate the person concerned from the larger complaint made against him but to admit that there had been some misunderstanding, some falling short.
I should like that letter to go on record were there time. I think that most people would judge that it was a good letter and one which fairly conveyed the outcome of the inquiry which the Deputy Chief Constable had made. That was, of course, the letter of 3rd June, but, as I have said, it has not proved possible to make contact with Mr. Taylor since to give him the final outcome of the matter.
I understand that on 20th May Mr. Taylor said explicitly that he did not intend to take civil action and was prepared to leave any decision to the discretion of the Chief Constable. Under the statutes and regulations, if Mr. Taylor is not satisfied it would be recourse to the courts which he would choose, but he made clear before the inquiry was undertaken that he would be satisfied to leave it to the discretion of the Chief Constable. My hon. Friend says that that is not now his view. I must put it to him that if Mr. Taylor wishes to pursue the matter he is free to raise it with the British Airports Authority and free to take it to the courts.
That is how the position now stands. I find that there is no advice that I can


reasonably give, but I ask my hon. Friend to believe that all the proper procedures were gone through in a meticulous fashion; all Mr. Taylor's complaints were examined; the British Airports Authority did what it was required to do under statute laid down by this House and the position of the British Airports Authority is not in substance different from that of police forces ultimately responsible to the Home Office.
Any further remedy, therefore, falls to Mr. Taylor in the courts—

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at six minutes past Eleven o'clock.